


Iron Man

by DrakkHammer



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Blindness, Eventual sexy times, Friendship, M/M, Rehabilitation, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:23:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7796278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrakkHammer/pseuds/DrakkHammer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fili is a retired Blind Rehabilitation Specialist, working at becoming a writer. He’s burned out and thinks he is done with rehab – until he meets Kili…</p><p>Kili moved to Auckland to stretch his wings, only to be brought down by a kid running a red light. He shouldn’t have survived the accident, but he did and his new apartment happens to be next door to Fili’s mum, who is the adopting kind of woman…and Kili really needs adopting.</p><p>Iron Man was originally published in an anthology from Dreamspinner Press called <a href="https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/dr-feelgood-1969-b%20"><strong>Dr. Feelgood</strong></a>  --  under the name of Meg O’Brien. Rights have reverted back to me and since it was always written as a ship, I thought I’d share it with fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

I’m a writer. I keep telling myself that. Of course it would help if I actually sold something more than occasionally. It’s not for lack of trying or even lack of talent (so I’ve been told) but I never seem to be able to write what they are currently buying although several publishers have kindly told me that they will keep me in mind. I’m thinking about doing the self-publishing route but I haven’t been able to make myself read through the contract. I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself when the phone rang.

I listened patiently for a minute resisting the urge to hang up, but finally relented and let my mother talk.

“I know you don’t teach anymore, but…”

“You know someone who’s blind and needs help and you knew just the person to call,” I finished for her. “Mum, you know I got so burned out working rehab that I quit. There’s only so much pain you can take from your clients when your boss gives you shit constantly for actually trying to help someone.”

She was quiet for a moment and then her voice dropped. “He’s my new neighbor and he’s so alone. I don’t think he knows anyone much in town and he was in an auto accident. Remember the one on the news where they were calling the guy who survived ‘Iron Man?’” I nodded as if she could see me.

“Well it’s a miracle he lived but now he’s out of the hospital and trying to live alone. He only moved to Auckland a few months before his accident and I don’t think he knows anyone. I went over to try to help but I don’t really know what I’m doing and he got upset so I left.” I could hear the quiver to her voice and knew I was fighting a losing battle. Mum adopted every stray dog, cat, or person she ever came across and her new neighbor was no exception.

“Ok, I give up. What time do you want me to come over?”

“Would now be too soon. I don’t want to interrupt you though.” I could hear the anxiety in her voice. Even having a son who has been a Blind Rehabilitation Specialist for 18 years hasn’t convinced her that visually impaired people can live alone without setting themselves on fire.

“That’s okay, I was just sitting here staring at a blank screen anyway,” I replied.

“Writer’s block?” She sounded sympathetic.

“Cement. A whole wall of it. I think I even forgot how to type.”

She laughed at my misery. “So come over and meet Killian. I’m making chiIi and I have chocolate cake.”

That’s right bribe me. I’m easy and I’m cheap.

I said my goodbyes, hung up the phone, and went into the spare room to get my gear. I might have retired but I still had all my supplies. My boss was so tight with the budget that I’d bought most of it myself, so darned if I was leaving it to the agency. I packed quickly and headed out.

Mum lives in a nice high-rise built with seniors and the disabled in mind. She buzzed me in and as I crossed the lobby to the elevator I scanned the room for the best way to teach a blind person to cross it and locate the elevator buttons. I noticed that the elevator buttons were marked with Braille, which was good, except that he probably didn’t know Braille yet. But it meant that the architect had at least given a little thought to the idea that someone visually impaired might live there.

Mum was waiting for me and gave me a big hug the moment I stepped in the door. “Fili, it’s so nice of you to do this.”

I laughed, “Like I had any other choice.” She gave me another hug and then let me go.

“Besides how could I refuse an introduction to my favorite superhero? So, lead on, McDuff, and introduce me to Iron Man.”

It took a long minute for him to answer the door. I heard him bump something and figured that that he didn’t have the layout to the apartment memorized yet. I couldn’t remember much about him from the news and hoped he wasn’t too old to learn some new skills.

After a bit of fumbling, the door opened and my worries about him being too old fled. I didn’t exactly expect Tony Stark, but I didn’t expect the guy who opened the door either. Before me stood one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen. He was tall and lanky with a mass of dark curls that spilled down to his collar and the biggest, most beautiful brown eyes imaginable. He was neatly dressed in a white shirt with a casual black jacket. The combination really brought out his coloring. I didn’t notice that he was wearing jeans until much later. He looked at me, but his gaze was directed past me to a point over my shoulder and it almost broke my heart that those beautiful eyes were seeing nothing. I just stood frozen staring at him.

My mother, who I could have killed for not warning me, broke the spell. “Killian, I want you to meet my son, Fili. I told you about him. He’s a blind teacher.”

Killian held out his hand waiting for me to take it. “Glad to meet you,” he said in a soft voice with the music of Ireland shaping the words.

I took his hand and shook it, embarrassed that I was in no hurry to let go. “I’m not a blind teacher, I teach blind people.” I found myself stumbling for words. “I’m a Blind Rehabilitation Specialist, that is. I hope those words don’t sound too scary.”

His laugh was low and musical. “After what I’ve been through, it would take a lot more than that to scare me.” He stepped back and said, “Come on in. Don’t mind the place, I’m still getting settled.”

True to his word there were still boxes piled in the hallway and I could see why he’d been slow getting to the door. He didn’t look like he’d gotten very far sorting things out and putting them away. I wondered if he was trying to do it alone.

Mum made her excuses and left. She had been my life raft when I had found myself drowning in those golden-brown eyes and I half wished that she would stay. Shrugging back into acting like an adult, I followed him into the living room, noting the decided limp. It wasn’t bad enough for him to need a cane, but the accident had obviously done quite a job on his left leg. When he sat down he moved it stiffly and caught it with the ankle of his right leg so that it was propped up. I could see that it still pained him.

“You’re looking at my leg.” It wasn’t a question. “They told me I was lucky I didn’t lose it. I admit I didn’t feel very lucky for a long while. One minute I’m driving along thinking about what to have for dinner and the next thing I remember is waking up in Intensive Care two weeks later.”

He dragged his fingers through his curls nervously. “Guy ran the red light and hit right where I was sitting. The door was shoved way into the car and I was pinned for quite a while. They apparently had to cut me out of it and I guess I tried to die a couple of times. I’m lucky I don’t remember any of it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s why the papers called you ‘Iron Man.” You can take a licking.”

“Apparently I’m either tough or just too damn stubborn to die.” His expression didn’t change. I looked at him and couldn’t help thinking that he looked like a man who wished that he had been neither.

He shifted his leg again. “It looks like it still hurts,” I said vapidly, wishing desperately I’d found something better to say.

Killian nodded. “They said it probably would always bother me when the weather changes. It’s healing and is a lot better than it was. I have a lot of blessings to count and that is one of them.”

“You’ve got a good attitude.” I was thinking how much easier that was going to make working with him.

He smiled a little. “I’m trying to get one. I only have two choices; get a better attitude or find a way to off myself.”

“I’m glad you took the first choice.”

“You are?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

It was my turn to laugh. “My mother hasn’t rescued anything in months. If you hadn’t come along it probably would have been another pigeon she’d want me to nurse back to health.”

He cocked his head, brown eyes darkened by furrowed brows. “So I’m a better choice than a pigeon?” He smiled and my heart did a little flip.

“Oh, way better. You can talk and you won’t be crapping all over my house.”

There was a laugh this time and my heart did an entire Olympic gymnastics routine. I couldn’t help joining him. When we stopped laughing he said, “I’m going have to remember when I get depressed, that no matter what, I’m a better choice than a pigeon.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Can’t teach ‘em computers either. They can’t type for crap.”

Another laugh. “Fortunately I can type, or I could. I haven’t touched a keyboard in over six months. The rehab center didn’t have a computer teacher while I was there, she was on maternity leave, but they said I could come back and take their course when she returned.”

“I see, and did you happen to tell my mother that you needed a computer teacher?” I already knew where this was going.

He smiled and nodded. “She may have mentioned that her son taught computers to blind people.”

“So, did she tell you she was going to drag me over here?” I asked, sounding lame.

“She did. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t necessary, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.” He looked pleasantly amused, so I guess she hadn’t steamrollered him, as she was occasionally wont to do.

“Yup, that’s Mum. Once she gets an idea in her head it’s pretty hard to dislodge it. I hope she’s not bothering you.”

“She’s been wonderful. I will never complain about anyone who keeps bringing me chocolate cake and cookies. It’s been a very welcome change from hospital and rehab food.”

We sat and talked for a long while. Killian told me about the accident and his rehabilitation. He’d gotten quite a large insurance settlement and there was still litigation pending. His car had been crossing the intersection legally when a kid driving a truck broadsided him. As he’d said, he had no memory of the accident. He paused for a long moment and then told me how his doctor had described the severity of the accident as therapy so that he would understand how fortunate he was to have survived.

Kili said that, at the time, he didn’t feel so fortunate. He didn’t feel like Iron Man. All he knew was that he was on his way to work and then woke up weeks later to find that he was completely blind. He blinked hard when relating that part of the story. Having one of your senses stripped from you is traumatic and vision loss is possibly the most traumatic of all. It was an adjustment that would always be day by day. No matter what anyone tells you, complete adjustment to a handicap is a fantasy. You just try to make each day as good as possible and eventually it becomes a habit, allowing your life to smooth out.

He’d gone from the regular rehab to the state rehabilitation center for the blind and had gotten all the basic skills you need to survive as a blind person. He said it had been a great help to been to meet others, some of whom were much worse off. But it had been hard to return and try to re-enter the world of the sighted. He had moved to New Zealand for a job that he now could no longer do, he didn’t really know very many people, and it was all more than a bit overwhelming.

I asked him if the doctors had given him a prognosis about his vision. He shrugged and looked down at his lap.

“They said with a closed head injury there are no guarantees. My eyes are fine, but there was damage to the visual center at the back of my brain. As it heals I may get back some of my vision, or I may not. I think I can see light sometimes, but it might be a hallucination. Sometimes my whole life seems like a hallucination.

I get headaches sometimes and my memory was shite for a while, but that’s getting better. Some things I guess I’ll get back and some I won’t”

He lapsed into silence and looked toward the window, letting the sun warm his face. I could tell that he needed a few moments and sat quietly waiting for him to be ready.

For the first time in my career I was slightly uncomfortable being alone with a client. His lack of vision made it possible for me to stare at him and stare I did. His features were classic, with huge liquid chocolate eyes that shaded to gold with the sun from the window to his left. When he frowned they went nearly jet under dark brows that curved like a gull’s wing. His skin was smooth olive with that hint of pink undertone that makes it seem to glow. Lips with a perfect Cupid’s bow framed even white teeth that I long to see curved into a smile. A scruff of dark beard and mustache graced his face, adding a masculinity that kept him from being pretty. I took a deep breath and forced myself to concentrate on what he needed – not what he looked like.

Killian looked at me and for a moment I felt all of the _Adult_ drain out of me.

He uncrossed his legs and stretched the injured one for a long moment. I could see that he was debating on how much more to say. With the barest shrug he made his decision and softly said, “I could have moved back home.” He paused for a long moment. “But my family is kind of…well…” He got very quiet and sat with his head bowed. “They don’t approve of my lifestyle.”

I didn’t know what to say for a moment and settled for, “I’m sorry to hear that. Parents sometimes have a hard time letting go and letting us live our own lives.”

“Yeah. Sometimes...”

I had the feeling that there was a world of pain behind those words. I literally couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be newly blind and alone in a new city with no family support. I was one of the lucky ones whose parents seemed to have always known that I was gay and cared only that I was happy. I knew darn well that when my mother had found out that Killian was both blind and gay she had gone into overdrive to get us together. At the moment I didn’t know whether to kiss her or kill her.

“Well,” I said, “It’s harder if you strike out on your own right away, but it’s better in the long run.”

“Do you say that to all your clients, or just the gay ones?” His face was a mask and I couldn’t tell if he was teasing or not.

I decided to meet his challenge head on. “All. When you become disabled, you have to move on as soon as you can so you don’t get stuck in a permanent pity party. It’s easy to do because everyone you meet will gladly join in. You have to stop handing out party favors and man-up, the sooner the better.”

My shrug was lost on him. “It’s another way of coming out. You aren’t what they expect, or are even comfortable with sometimes, but it’s who you are and you have to accept that so that you can make them accept it.”

 

He looked at me for a long moment as if trying to decide how full of shit I really was.

“I was lucky,” I said. I had never come out to a client before and it was harder than I thought when I started talking.

“My family accepted me, well for the most part. My brother still isn’t totally supportive and I have a cousin whose house I’m no longer welcome in. That hurt me and made me do a lot of questioning because until I came out he was closer to me than my brother, but I made up my mind to be who I was because there didn’t seem to be any other choice.”

“What made you become a blind teacher?” His expression was still guarded.

“Well,” said hedging a little knowing how it would sound. “When I was in uni I dated a guy who was blind and there was a stipend that paid half the tuition, so…”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Killian finished for me. His lips quirked in a little smile and I could see him start to relax. He’d waited for my judgment, found none, and felt a little more comfortable. It was easy to slide into being the professional, easier than sitting here wanting and knowing that I could not have.

I knew I was blushing and selfishly was glad he couldn’t see me. “Kinda,” I replied. “It’s been a good fit though.” I didn’t feel the need to mention my burnout.

“That’s all that counts,” he said, changing the subject. Leaning back he adjusted his bad leg carefully.

“I’ve been independent since I was eighteen and I don’t mean to stop now, just because of this,” he gestured toward his eyes. “I’ve done my crying and I’m ready to move on.

“I have someone who comes twice a week to instruct me in walking with a cane and cooking, but there’s no one to teach me the computer. I’m afraid that when your mother told me you could do that I jumped at the chance.”

“Do you know anything about computers?” I asked tentatively.

He nodded, “Yes, I had just bought myself a new one before I moved here. I was a paralegal and used a computer quite a lot.”

I let my breath out; maybe this wouldn’t be impossible after all. “Let’s have a look at it, shall we?”

Killian took me into his bedroom where the computer was nicely set up on one of those spacious corner desks. I don’t know why I was suddenly so interested in the bedroom. It was your typical blank apartment setup with white walls and a closet with a sliding door that was also a mirror. I felt a twinge of sadness that he would not be able to use the mirror. He had some pictures hung up, family I guessed by the grouping of people in them. They weren’t quite even and I knew that he’d put them up himself. They were still important to him even if they didn’t approve of him. I wondered if, in a way, not being able to see them and think of their judgment made it just the tiniest bit easier to have the pictures up. I also wondered if they had any idea how much he still loved them.

He sat on the bed while I booted the computer and inspected it, pleased to find it had plenty of memory and hard disk space. “This one will do fine, it’s a good system,” I said checking the internet connection.

“Do I need to buy a Braille keyboard, or something like that? I’m not very good at Braille yet.”

“No, don’t worry about it. There is a program that will make the computer speak to you when you type. There are some key commands you will need to learn, but mostly it will work just the same as you’re used to, only you will use the keyboard for everything instead of the mouse.”

As I talked, I downloaded a demo of the JAWS program and installed it. I adjusted the speech rate and a couple of the settings to make it easier for a beginner. I also added a few small adhesive raised dots to the F and the J to make the home row easier to find. When I was satisfied, I opened the word processing program.

“Well, Killian, it’s ready to rock. Are you?”

“I’ve been ready since you got here,” came the reply. He stood up and I moved so that he could take his chair. I went into the kitchen, fetched another chair, and sat next to him.

“I need you to do me a favor though,”

“Okay. Sure, what is it?”

He smiled shyly and looked at the keyboard instead of at me. “Call me Kili. Only mum calls me Killian. I know our names are ridiculously close, but I’m not Killian any more and haven’t been for a long time.”

“Sure, Kili, I can do that,” I replied. Fili and Kili, who knew…

He put his hands on the home row and started to type. He also started to smile. The more he typed, the more he smiled. We spent the next hour tweaking the program and going through the basic commands. He learned quickly and I prodded myself for being a little disappointed that he wouldn’t need extensive tutoring. I’m supposed to be a professional and clients are not to be thought of as eye candy…even if they are.

Kili decided that he liked the program well enough that he wanted to buy it. It was expensive, but he was sure he could afford it, so I helped him to purchase a copy and register it. He went to work typing madly away and my eyes drifted from the computer screen to his face. His heavy brows were pulled down in concentration making him look almost dangerous. His features were very mobile and showed every emotion. He’d been guarded when he first he met me, but he’d opened up quickly. He was lonely and it showed.

The doorbell rang, giving me an excuse to think about something else. I told him to keep practicing and that I would get it. I opened the door to find my mother standing there juggling a large bowl of chili topped by a plate of fresh cornbread, balancing a plate with half a chocolate cake in the other hand.

“For goodness sakes, Fili, grab something before it hits the floor!” I grabbed the bowl and carried the chili and cornbread into the kitchen.

“Who is it?” Kili called from the bedroom.

“It’s my mother who apparently thinks that learning the computer takes grown men to the brink of starvation in an hour.”

He came out sniffing. “Wow, that is brilliant. Thanks, Mrs. O’Gorman. I smell chili and chocolate cake.”

“You missed the cornbread,” I chided him.

He stuck out his tongue at me. “Give me a break, I’m still developing those superhero abilities all blind people have.”

“You’ve been reading too much Daredevil,” I teased. “I love him, but he’s not the best role model.”

He flipped his head and snorted. “I will have you know that Marvel comics do not sully these premises. My superheroes do not need to have nuclear accidents to be super.”

I groaned. “Mum, I’m not sure I can work with this heathen, he reads DC.”

She laughed and then turned to Kili. “Did you know the paper called you Iron Man?”

He groaned. “I can’t fly and my chest doesn’t glow.”

Suddenly his expression darkened. “I suppose Batman would be appropriate now though.”

Mum looked at me for help.

“I don’t know,” I replied carefully. “Do you plan to keep Gotham safe from the bad guys?”

I could see he was fighting the urge to slide into self-pity. It said a lot for his character that his next words were, “I’d need a Batsuit for that…the one without the nipples. I mean, who ever heard of nipples on a suit of body armor?”

“I guess Joel Schumacher did.” I couldn’t believe I managed to pull the name of the director out of my ass. Neither did my mum who was staring at me in astonishment.

Kili started to laugh. “And he cast Val Kilmer. If they were making it today they’d have to call it “Fatman.”

“That was cold,” I teased, trying to keep his mood on the upswing.

“But true. I think Michael Keaton is my favorite Batman, but Bale isn’t bad.”

Mum chimed in. “I’m more of a Superman fan myself.”

I nudged her gently. “Who are you kidding, you’re more of a Christopher Reeve fan.”

She nudged me back. “Well you had just as big a crush on him.”

We both stopped dead. Until then I’d never really understood what a deafening silence was.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to out you.”

I gave her a hug. “It’s okay mum, no harm, no foul. I outed myself a little while ago and we both survived it.”

I set two bowls on the table, and then started looking for some spoons.

“Silverware is in the second drawer on the right of the sink.” He paused and looked toward me. “Organization is a lesson I’m finding very handy.”

I pulled out the spoons. “Good. Once you’ve mastered it, you can teach it to me because I suck at it.”

 

“If Captain America and Batman can work together I guess we can manage,” he teased. “You will have to be Cap, though and I will don my trusty Batsuit…the one without nipples.”

My mother was laughing. “You two can discuss comics without me. Fili’s father got him into comic collecting as soon as he could read.”

“Well, I guess he comes by it naturally. I’ll just have to work on broadening his horizons, though.” He opened the refrigerator door. “Do you want a beer or soft drink, Vicky?”

Mum laughed and headed for the door. “Not right now. You two have a lot to talk about and I have some work to finish. You boys enjoy your dinner.”

Kili got out two beers and opened them expertly. One thing you never lose is your ability to open a beer. He brought them over and set them down on the table. Then he slid his hand along the surface of the table until it came in contact with his bowl. He aligned himself and took his seat gracefully. Whoever had trained him had done a good job and it was obvious that he’d done his homework and had practiced.

Mum’s chili was excellent as usual and the cornbread was perfect. I heaved a sigh. Food like this could make a man think about moving back in, or at least coming by for dinner more often.

Kili ate neatly, too neatly really. He was self-conscious of how he might look to someone else, namely me. I wanted to tell him that he was perfect. I’d already dropped a blob of chili on my front. I never could eat without wearing some of it, but he was spooning it up with a precision I envied. I was sitting across from the most breathtakingly gorgeous man I’d ever met and I was desperately trying to figure out how to handle this. If I contracted with him he would be my client and that meant hands off. If I didn’t agree to be paid my help would look like charity.

The professional battled with the man inside me whose heart was doing a happy-dance every time Kili spoke. He wasn’t going to need much training, so maybe I could find a way to just offer some help without actually taking him on as a client. I was retired. I had to draw the line somewhere.

Didn’t I?

He took another bite of chili and smiled. My heart capitulated. Volunteering it was. I wanted to ask him out, but I didn’t know if he was seeing anyone. I had no idea if he was even ready. Was I ready? Was he just completely out of my league? I desperately needed to stop thinking.

I took the coward’s way out and settled for making small talk. “What brought you to New Zealand?” A safe enough topic to bring up.

That smile again. “I saw an advert and who could resist the opportunity to move to Middle-Earth? I’m glad one of the first things I did was go and do the tourist thing and see Hobbiton and some of the places they shot Lord of the Rings.”

He heaved a sigh, “I took a lot of snaps. I was going to do something with them, but I never had the chance.”

“Snaps?” I was lost.

“Photos,” he replied quickly. “I am…was a bit of a graphic artist and thought I’d tinker with them a bit and print a few for my wall.”

“You can still do that, print some for your walls, that is. You will need someone to describe them to you to help you choose, but once they are up on the wall, they will still be yours. You have the images in your head. No one can take those, so you will still be surrounded by Middle-Earth.” I didn’t want to trivialize what he’d been through, but he needed to know that sometimes by shifting his perspective things wouldn’t be so different after all.

He thought about it and then nodded. “I guess you’re right. I’m still in Middle-Earth. I’ve been trying to make up my mind if I want to stay here or go back to Dublin, but what idiot would want to leave the Shire?”

“Or Gondor?” I added.

“Or Mt. Doom?”

He grinned at me. “I hiked it and it was brilliant. If you haven’t done it, you have to put it on your bucket list. It appears that you actually can ‘simply walk into Mordor,’ with a guide anyway.”

I hated to admit that I lived a short flight away from the wonders of my own country, yet hadn’t gotten around to seeing any of them. “Yeah, I need to do that.”

“Don’t just say it,” his voice nearly broke. “Do it! You never know what will happen tomorrow.”

“I promise.” I meant it. I needed to stop staring at a blank page and get out and do the tourist thing.

Heavy brows furrowed, he said something that I couldn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Kili shook his head. “It was Irish Gaelic. It translates as, _‘The value of the well is not known until it goes dry.’_ It’s something my gran used to say. I hadn’t thought of it in years.”

“I love hearing the language and the accent because it still has the music of Gaelic in it.” He smiled. “Your mother said you were a writer. It sounds like a good calling for you…if you give up teaching blind people, that is.”

I knew I was blushing and felt like an idiot. “I don’t seem to be able to give that up, but I didn’t mean to sound so…so…”

“Lyrical?” he finished for me. “Poetic. Whatever you call it, I like it. Ireland is a poetic country. I think even those of us without a creative bone in our body fancy ourselves to be the next William Butler Yeats.”

“Even you?”

He put down his beer. “Especially me. I wrote reams of poetry before a professor of mine had the courtesy and the balls to tell me I needed to get a real job. Last year I dug some of it out and read it. Lord, was it turgid.”

“Purple?” I asked.

“It glowed in the fucking dark.” Kili laughed so hard he had to wipe his eyes. He pronounced, “fucking” as “fooking” and I nearly lost it. Ah, I am such a sucker for an Irish accent.

“So you decided to be a paralegal?” I wanted to know so much more about him that it was all I could do to keep from pumping him for as much information as I could get.

“Mum wanted me to be a lawyer, but I couldn’t see myself in school for so many years. I wanted a life. I’d just found my sexuality and I wanted to date and have fun.” He looked suddenly serious. “My family is still Irish Catholic though…”

“I don’t imagine they liked all of that very much.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. I hadn’t spoken to any of them for almost four years when I had the accident. They told me that my mum and my dad were there in the hospital, but I don’t remember them. I was in a coma for almost a month. When I woke up they weren’t there, they’d had to return home after a couple of weeks. My brother came down just as I was waking up. He didn’t see eye-to-eye with the man I was dating and I think he used that as an excuse to stay away. I was going to live and apparently not change, so I was on my own.”

He sat there sadly peeling the label off of his bottle. “To be fair, they couldn’t stay here in another country, so they had to go back home. I don’t think they know that I’m blind and I’m not going to tell them.”

I wanted to take his hand and comfort him. Instead I started peeling my own bottle. It’s a guy thing.

“Does your boyfriend help out now that you’re back from rehab?” I wanted to know both for myself and because it’s always helpful to someone newly blind to have someone to support them. Okay, I also wanted to know if he was single but that wasn’t my main purpose. Honest.

Kili shook his head. “The blindness was the last straw. He could deal with the leg, but not with the rest. We hadn’t been dating very long so I wasn’t surprised.”

Neither was I. Losing your partner after a serious injury is far too common. It separates the wheat from the chaff very quickly. Unfortunately it was always very hard on the disabled person. It was better than staying out of pity, but not by much.

“What do you like to do for fun?” I asked, wanting to get the conversation back on a positive note.

“Fun?”

“Don’t say it like it’s an alien concept. You can still do a lot of the things that you used to do.” He looked dubious and took another sip of beer. “What kind of movies do you like?”

He ducked his head. “You’ll laugh.”

“I swear on my mother’s grave that I won’t.”

That made him smile which made me smile. “I like the superhero movies, of course but what I really love are old movies. You know Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, Betty…uh…” He forgot the name.

“Boop,” I teased.

“Davis. Bette Davis.”

I quietly prayed he’d never seen “Dark Victory.” “How about _The Man Who Came to Dinner_?”

“One of my favorites and I love screwball comedies.”

“How about Hitchcock?”

“ _Spellbound,_ ” he called out.

“ _Notorious._ ” I added.

“ _Dial M for Murder, Rear Window_ and _To Catch a Thief_.”

I laughed. “You win. I’m running out of titles I can pull off the top of my head. I’m not much of a fan of _Vertigo_ though.”

He pulled a face and then laughed. “Ugh, me either. I don’t suppose I have to worry about that phobia any more though.”

I was suddenly worried. “Is it a phobia?”

“Naw, not really. I just have the normal fear of doing something stupid and falling on my head.”

He took a deep breath and pushed his bowl away, leaning on the table with his elbows. “So what do I owe you?”

“Huh?” For a writer I have such a way with words.

“For coming over and working with me. I’ll need you to come back a few more times until I get the hang of this speech thing.” He looked at me expectantly.

The rock and the hard place so soon, I was not prepared for it. “I…uh…I’m not really in a position to contract with anyone these days. I retired.” I didn’t mention that I was still licensed.

Kili’s eyes darkened as his brows drew downward. “Oh, ok. Maybe you can recommend someone then. I have insurance so paying isn’t a problem.”

I could feel my stomach twist and sort of mentally crossed my fingers. “My mum lives next door, so I was thinking that I could do it as a favor.”

His lips thinned. “I’m not really in need of charity.”

The twist released with a snap. “I’m not offering charity. I was thinking more along the lines of friendship.” He was silent, but I hastily added. “I don’t have so many friends that I couldn’t use another one. We like a lot of the same things and I just…well…thought we might just kind of hang out together now and then.”

That was about the time my brain stopped working correctly and I started babbling. “I like old movies too. I have quite a few that are narrated. Have you ever seen a movie with descriptive video?” _Please tell me that you haven’t._

“What’s that?”

“Movies where a narrator fills in what is happening during the quiet scenes so a blind person can follow the story better. I have a number of them,” I said a bit too eagerly. I didn’t add that I’d gotten pretty good at narrating movies that didn’t have the sound tracks. I was afraid I’d oversell it…and myself.

I could see that he was thinking it over. He had a very expressive face and I could barely conceal my joy when his final expression was a smile.

“Ok, you’re on. When can you come back and bring a movie?”

“How about tomorrow night, maybe sevenish?" I didn’t want to have him have to commit to dinner as well. I'd already decided on just a short training session and then relaxing with a movie. “What are you in the mood to see? I just got a narrated copy of “His Girl Friday.”

The smile turned into a grin and I nearly forgot what we were talking about. “I love that movie. I’ve got popcorn, so we’re on.”

I helped him clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher. When I left he shook my hand and I had to admit that I was very reluctant to let go. He seemed in no hurry to end the contact either. I heaved a sigh when the door shut. This was either going to be the start of something great or an unmitigated disaster.

I hadn’t been home more than ten minutes when Mum called. “You didn’t stop in when you left.” She was trying to sound accusatory, but ended up giggling. “Isn’t he gorgeous?’

I heaved a sigh. Some people’s parents didn’t like them being gay. My mother was always trying to get me hooked up. I had never quite decided if there was something wrong with that or not.

“You’ll be happy to know that I’m working with him on the computer. In fact I’m coming back over at seven tomorrow.”

“You’re welcome,” she said as a non sequitur and hung up.

I stood there with the phone in my hand, resisting the urge to hit myself in the head with it. “Goodbye,” I said to empty air and hung up. I went into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and headed for my computer. Maybe I could write off some of my frustration and nerves.

It didn’t work, but at least it wore me out. As I was getting ready for bed I looked in the mirror. I was on the wrong side of thirty. Ok, just on the wrong side, but five years difference could mean a lot to some people. I didn’t look twenty-five anymore - too much sun and probably too many beers. I didn’t feel twenty-five any more either. Not since I’d thrown myself off the wrong mountain and had an idiot novice cut me off, sending me in the wrong direction and into a tree. A spiral fracture and a permanently weakened left arm convinced me that my skiing days were over. Still, I wasn’t going to stop any clocks and just maybe I had a shot with Kili. Just maybe…

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friendzone is a cold and unfriendly place to dwell. It's also tough to maintain when the man of your dreams is sitting next to you laughing at a silly old movie and making your heart do Olympic-size tumbling runs. How were either of them to know that these feelings might just run both ways?
> 
>  
> 
> Note: This is was supposed to be the final chapter -- however, the boys apparently have more to say and so there will be a coda coming soon.

 

 

I wasn’t sleepy, so sat down at the computer hoping to get at least a few hundred words down. It was nearly midnight when I had to admit that writing wasn’t going to happen. At this rate I might have to take Kili on as a client. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that a tidy inheritance from my nan had made my retirement possible. I wasn’t going to starve any time in the near future.

I placed my fingers on the keys, but then instead of writing, I kicked on Google and searched for information on Kili’s accident. Iron Man indeed. It had been a truck that had struck him, not a car. The tipper was going the wrong way, fortunately not fully loaded, but massive enough to crush the front and most of the passenger side of his car. It had taken emergency services nearly an hour to get him out using the jaws-of-life. He’d died at one point, but the paramedics were able to jump-start him. He has to have been an _Iron Man_ to survive. The photos on the scene showed the mix of weariness mixed joy on their faces. At that moment I loved them all fiercely.

I found a link to the rescue on YouTube taken and posted by some gawker, but was only able to watch until the camera zoomed in on Kili’s bloodied face, contorted in agony. That was enough internet for the night…maybe for the year.

I dreamed about the accident, nothing that I could remember except the feeling of being helpless. I lay in bed for a few minutes after my alarm went off trying to give myself an attitude adjustment.

I wasn’t there. I couldn’t have helped if I was. What I could do was to remain professional and to help him to adjust to a new way of living. He needed a friend, not someone who was crushing on him.

I could do that.

I could be a friend.

I made sure I was punctual. From the speed at which Kili opened the door I had an inkling that he might just have been lurking on the other side of it. This time he was wearing a pale blue crewneck sweater knitted out of something soft and fine. It brought out the pink in his completion and complemented the new jeans he was wearing. He has some sort of light product on his hair and the curls were separating out into individual ringlets. One trailed across his cheek while the rest peeked out from behind his ears. I think I had to tell my heart to start beating again.

I also had to tell it to shut up. This was a friendzone time, if ever there was one.

The computer session went well, better than expected in fact. He was a fast learner with good retention. Fortunately, he’d worked a lot with the Word program and knew about the ribbons Microsoft had thrown in just to confuse us. It was going to take more practice before he had the keystrokes to access them memorized, but he grasped the concept and that was most of the battle. I was pleased to find that the head injury he’d sustained hadn’t affected his memory.

After an hour and a half of some pretty intense practice, he admitted that he was getting tired and we ended the lesson. It was time for some recreation so that he could recharge. I had often wished that I had the luxury of doing this with my former students.

I dug the DVD out of my bag and looked at the bewildering array of buttons on his remotes. “Can you use these?”

He shook his head sadly. “Not really. I sort of guess, but as often as not I can’t find what I’m looking for.”

“Would you mind if I marked them for you so you can tell the buttons apart?”

“You can do that?” he asked eagerly. “Yeah, I’d appreciate it.”

I got out my trusty adhesive Velcro and scissors out of my bag and carefully cut shapes out of the rough side. After I put them in place we got his digital recorder and I went over what the buttons did. Like the computer, it was going to take some practice, but on the third try, he was able to reliably switch from cable to DVD and to pick the cable channel that he wanted. He sat there playing like a kid with a new toy while I went into the kitchen and put the popcorn in the microwave.

It had nearly finished popping when he appeared next to me and took two beers out of the fridge. “You know, I thought I’d miss the big things like sunsets and rainbows, but what I really miss are the little things. I miss not being able to tune my TV, set the microwave easily, count change and that sort of silly everyday stuff.”

“I’ve heard a lot of people say that. I don’t know if you ever totally get used to the little frustrations, but you will learn to cope better. You will also learn when it’s ok to just throw a huge fucking fit and get rid of the anger that builds up.”

He looked at me in astonishment and then burst out laughing. “You know I’ve wanted to do just that but I kept telling myself that tantrums are for children.”

“Well I wouldn’t advise doing it all the time, but sometimes you just have to let it out or you’ll burst. As long as you don’t throw anything my way I’ll totally support it.”

“I knew there was something I liked about you, Fili,” he gave me a cheeky grin. “Now come in here and show me how these newfangled movie things work.”

Cary Grant was a hit. You didn’t have to see to be able to appreciate his honey-smooth voice and delicious accent, not to mention his keen sense of comedic timing. And Rosalind Russell, well, she’d always been enough to make me question my sexuality, Kili’s too, apparently.

We’d sat on the sofa with the popcorn between us. He put his leg up on the footstool and padded it with pillows to hold it steady. I assisted with the pillows and felt a little warm glow when he smiled and thanked me. When he was comfortable, I handed him the remote and showed him which button to use.

The movie was even more fun than I remembered and I filled in any bits the narrator didn’t catch. We laughed and had a great time. At one point we both reached into the popcorn bowl at the same time and our hands touched, neither of us moved away quickly. I felt my heart give just the tiniest flutter. I also felt guilty. I sternly reminded myself it was unethical for me to hit on a client. Except that, I wasn’t taking money so he wasn’t exactly a client. I scrunched my eyes, glad for a moment that he couldn’t see me and my battle with my conscience.

At the end of the evening, I decided that I wasn’t so sure about the friendzone thing. Or rather I was sure…sure it was going to kill me. I did know that whatever I did it had to be ethical. Oh, that word. But after spending two hours of having Olympic-size heart palpitations, I decided to go with the flow and see how it went. He wasn’t a child and neither was I. It would either work out, or it wouldn’t. The warmth of the hug I got when I left had me hopeful. I didn’t need to be told “sweet dreams” when I crawled into bed, I had them quite on my own.

I was sipping my morning coffee when the phone rang. I didn’t even have to check to see who is was. “Hello, Mum, yes it went fine, no it wasn’t a date, yes I’m going back tonight, have a nice day.” I hung up.

The phone barely hit the table before it rang again. Fortunately for me she was laughing. "You know me far too well, Fili.”

“Yes I do,” I affirmed. “Was there any other reason you were calling, or did you hope I’d tell you something juicy, like maybe the positions we used?”

“You’re going to make me blush,” she said laughing.

“Mum, nothing I know of could make you blush. I appreciate your support, but Kili’s sort of a client and I can’t just hit on him. Maybe we’ll get beyond that and maybe we won’t, but could you just let us work this out on our own? For god’s sake don’t say anything to Kili.”

“I promise,” she said, “but you keep me posted about any developments.”

“The developments are going to be me teaching him the computer. If, when he’s graduated, anything more happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

She might tease me half to death but she’d never embarrassed me in front of anyone. In private was quite another matter. Some parents settled for joining P-Flag. My mum read up on everything possible and I always had a hunch she knew more about gay sex than I did. From the expression on Dad’s face when I went over I’d say she felt free to experiment with some of them.

Ok…enough of that train of thought.

I actually got some writing done. I didn’t question where the burst of creativity had come from, I just rolled with it and managed to get nearly 4,000 words down before I had to stop and fix myself some dinner. I was almost too nervous to eat but I needn’t have been. Everything went as smoothly as the night before, the movie providing a welcome respite from the lesson.

We settled into a routine. I’d come over and we’d have a lesson. Sometimes it would include a meal, ostensibly to give Kili practice in the kitchen, or as he’d put it, “I’m almost to the point of not setting the kitchen on fire.”

As his skills grew, so did his confidence and the man who met me at the door moved around his apartment with ease. Meal prep was fun for him now and he had no qualms about putting me to work chopping vegetables, or draining pasta. As a sighted person, I did have my uses.

Some nights he was dead tired. If he’d been out on a mobility lesson, there wasn’t much left for computers. In uni I’d done my share of training under a blindfold and I knew how disorienting, if not just plain terrifying, it could be to struggle with trying to get from here to there with no vision. It was exhausting and I’d encouraged Kili not to even think of having a lesson after a session of trying to deal with Auckland public transportation, or shopping.

The movie nights had become more, well shall we say, friendly. It was still hands off, but Kili was looser, more relaxed and talked more about his life in Dublin. He missed a lot of things there, his friends and his family, and the ability to get out and enjoy the town. The latter was the one thing I could do something about.

I’d come over after dinner, had a lesson, and then we’d watched a movie. I felt that it was time we branched out a little entertainment-wise.

As I was putting the popcorn bowl in the sink I turned to Kili and said, “How about instead of me bringing another movie we go out to the cinema tomorrow to see one? Marvel has gifted us with another Captain America movie and, while I know you prefer DC, I thought you might like to go see it.”

Kili backed up against the sink his brows pulled down hard. He looked like a thundercloud, dark and unreadable. I was worried that I had said something wrong. At length, he spoke up. “How am I going to see the movie?”

“I checked and the movie is described and the theater is equipped with descriptive video. They just installed it, so we can go and see how it works.” I had to check myself. I felt I was getting too enthusiastic.

I didn’t want to overburden him, so I added. “You are doing so well with the computer I want to celebrate. I’ll bring dinner and we can go to the movie after we eat. Besides, I don’t really want to go alone.”

His brows remained down but I could see that he wanted to go. It had been too long since he was out on the town. Finally, his brows gave up the battle and his expression softened. Was that a shadow of hope that I saw, or was it just what I wanted to see?

“Okay,” he said quietly. “It will be fun.” It was obvious that he wasn’t quite sure that it would be, but at least he was willing to give it a shot.

I spent the day making gumbo from a recipe Mum got from a friend in New Orleans. It was a pain, but it was good enough to make you want to ask it to marry you. I was so nervous I burned the roux the first time and had to start over. I kept trying to tell myself that this wasn’t a date, but my heart kept responding that it most certainly was. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted him to like me. The moment I thought that I think I blushed, but it was true. I wanted him to like me and let me court him and do all those sweet stupid things you do when you are trying to get a relationship off of the ground.

I was punctual and the door opened so fast that it gave me a start. I clung to the towel-wrapped pot in my arms and just stared at him for a moment before my tongue loosened and I remembered to identify myself.

“You look great,” I blurted. “I mean we match, kinda…I’m wearing a blue sweater and jeans too.”

“So, if you look great, I must look great, too,” he teased.

 _You have no idea_ , I thought, fighting the urge to reach out and tuck back the curl that had escaped and was draped across his right eye. It was a very good thing that my hands were full.

He sniffed and looked puzzled. “It smells wonderful but I don’t know what it is,” he said as he followed me to the kitchen.

“That’s probably because they don’t make a lot of gumbo in Ireland,” I teased. “This is a genuine filé gumbo from an old New Orleans recipe. I modified it just a little because I didn’t know how spicy you like food.” I set the pot on the stove and turned on the burner.

“I’m not into pain if that’s what you’re asking,” he replied somewhat hesitantly.

I chuckled. “Me either, so I substituted smoked sausage for the spicy Andouille you’re supposed to use and I didn’t add the filé. I brought some in case you are feeling adventurous and want to add it yourself. It’s not really hot but it might be an acquired taste.”

Kili got out the beer and the bowls and I set the pot on the table, unceremoniously serving us. I’d mixed the rice in like Mum always did, so there was only one big pot of yumminess to deal with. I ladled it out and he dug in. I grinned watching him shovel it down; the gumbo was definitely a hit…the filé not so much. I didn’t care all that much for it myself either. But still, gumbo has to have a container of filé somewhere near it to be considered authentic.

Kili did indeed like the gumbo and grinned when I told him the next step was my jambalaya recipe, guaranteed to put even more hair on your chest.

After his second bowl, Kili took a breath. “This is heaven.”

I wanted to say, _“No this is—sitting here watching you eat.”_ Instead, I just laughed and told him I was glad he liked it. I picked up the bowls and set them in the sink. “There’s plenty left for you to have for lunch and maybe dinner tomorrow. The next time I make it, I’ll make a bigger batch.”

“I get to keep the leftovers?” I could see a midnight snack in the planning.

“Of course, but we need to get a move on and start heading out the door.”

Kili surprised me by being ready to go in minutes instead of the half hour I was used to. I could tell that he was very nervous and did my best to take charge and make sure everything went smoothly. It made me feel too professional, but in a way this was therapy even though I really wanted it to be a first date. We walked sighted guide, with him gently holding my elbow with his left hand and holding his cane in his right. When we entered the theater I felt as if I were escorting him instead of leading him and the feeling was wonderful.

At the theater, he protested when I paid for us both.

“I invited you, remember? If you have a good time the next movie’s on you.” I looked at the cashier and requested a descriptive audio device.

The cashier, who hadn’t quite made up her mind about us, suddenly realized that he was blind and maybe not my boyfriend. She smiled as she handed him the device. “I hope you have a great time.” I noticed that she watched us as we crossed into the theater. Somehow I didn’t think I was the one she was interested in.

The descriptive audio worked well and I was glad the cashier had given us two of them, so I’d know what he was hearing. The movie was a lot of fun. Even Kili had to admit that Marvel has come up with some pretty cool superheroes. The best part of it was when I accidentally laid my hand on top of his and he didn’t move. We sat for the rest of the movie sort of holding hands. Not really entwined, but with my palm against the back of his hand. At one point he turned his hand over and just gently clasped mine. I did my best to relax and just enjoy the show, but when he massaged the side of my hand with his thumb, I think I missed a whole scene at that point.

When it ended I was reluctant to have our evening be over. He didn’t appear overly eager to get up and exit either. We stayed for the end credits and the obligatory Marvel post-credits scene and then headed out. We did the typical fanboy banter all the way back to his apartment. He had me way beat with DC comic lines and I conceded defeat when he did an entire scene from _The Dark Knight._

I was pretty sure that he could navigate the apartment house entrance independently, but instead, he took my arm and kept in perfect step. On the way out his grip had been correctly light, barely making contact. Now, however, it was firmer—more possessive—his hand encircling my elbow, fingers strong against my forearm.

When I stopped in front of his door I took a step back to make sure that he would not feel pressured. He opened the lock smoothly but didn’t go in. Instead, he found my arm, slid his hand down and took mine. Squeezing gently, he looked at me.

“Thank you for the wonderful evening, Fili. You just keep opening doors for me. You’ve certainly given me a lot to think about.”

I think I must have made some sort of noise at that point, but I really don’t remember it. He laughed and continued. “Not the least of which is what to cook to repay you for the gumbo. I have to get my kitchen skills up to speed to compete with that pot of pure brilliance.”

I could feel the awkwardness starting, but he didn’t let it. This time he took charge. Kili gave my hand a squeeze and stepped into his door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Definitely.” I stood there in the empty hall grinning like an idiot. I tiptoed past Mom’s door and, still smiling like I’d won the lottery, took myself home. Sleep came slowly and was filled with superheroes…not all of them from Marvel.

The next morning I was doing battle with my protagonist’s emotions, which was a good excuse to avoid thinking about my own. The phone rang and I answered it still thinking about my next line of dialog.

“Well…”

It took my brain a moment to recognize my mother’s voice and hear it switch gears to go into interrogation mode.

“Well, nothing,” replied. “I made a pot of gumbo and we went to a movie. End of story.”

“No goodnight kiss?” She sounded so disappointed that I burst out laughing.

“It wasn’t a date. I’m still his instructor. I just wanted to show him that he could still go out to movies. We’re lucky enough to have a theater with descriptive video services.”

“But you made him dinner.” She sounded so hopeful that I laughed again.

“Yes, I did. I don’t know if this is going anywhere yet, Mom. I like him and he likes me, but it’s awfully soon to be thinking in terms of relationships.” I heard her sigh, and I laughed. “Cool your jets, okay? I promise I will keep you in the loop as long as you stop listening at your door. You’re not Lois Lane, stop trying to out-scoop me. You’ll know when I know.”

“Ok, Clark, I’ll behave,” she promised, “Are you seeing him again?”

“Tonight for another lesson. I’ll keep you posted, now go harass Dad or something.”

I hung up and sat there with my head in my hands for a moment. I didn’t know whether to laugh, or bang my head on the table. I hadn’t been this giddy about the thought of a relationship since college. It took me awhile to get back to writing. I wish I did have something to share with my mother, but I didn’t dare get my hopes up.

Kili’s request was for “Bringing Up Baby” which I didn’t have as a descriptive video. I was going to be the one narrating it and I hoped I was up to the job.

Again the amazingly fast door opening. I’d listened this time and it wasn’t my imagination – he was standing next to the door waiting for me. That thought made my heart skip a beat. As I came in he put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze before stepping back. I was thrilled for two reasons—first, that he liked me, and second, that he was able to judge my position in space. He was mastering his world and that would mean he was a lot more comfortable in it.

Tonight his attire was more casual and more heart-stopping. He was wearing beige slacks and a light oatmeal weave Henley shirt with the buttons open showing an amazing amount of dark chest hair. I stopped my hand just short of his chest. Down, boy. Had he guessed my weakness? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to complain. I wasn’t sure how much of the movie I was actually going to see.

Again the computer lesson went well. We concentrated on how to navigate the more advanced ribbons that he’d need for paralegal work. As he repeatedly said, “I didn’t die in the accident and I’m damned sure not going to lay down now. My company said they would take me back as soon as I was ready and I’m way past bored to death so I have to get back to work.”

Making the popcorn was even more stressful than it had been the night before. I kept sneaking looks at him with those dark ringlets and the teasing décolleté. I honestly didn’t know which one I wanted to get my fingers into the most. How on earth was I ever going to watch him, watch the movie, follow the story enough to narrate it, and not lose my mind? Going off a mountain into a tree was easy compared to this.

It went a lot better than expected. The film needed surprisingly little interjection from me and when Cary Grant, wearing a peignoir trimmed in marabou, leaped into the air and announced, “I just went gay all of a sudden!” we both laughed so hard that we spilled the popcorn. I paused the movie so we could clean it up.

I was sweeping it off the sofa into the bowl when our hands touched. Kili took mine and this time he didn’t let go.

“You’ve described everything perfectly, but you haven’t described yourself.” His voice was soft and the tone had deepened. “I want to know what the man I’ve been fantasizing about looks like.”

For someone who has made his living by describing things, I was suddenly struck dumb. There was too long a silence.

His hand slid away from mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “You’re here as a professional and I know I just crossed the line.” From his expression and the way his head twisted away from me I knew the thought was loud in his head that I would never want him because of his blindness.

Feeling like an ass, I grabbed his hand and held it tightly. “I’m the one who’s sorry. It never occurred to me that you might feel the same as I do. You’re a little out of my league. I was just sort of dumbfounded.”

Kili looked directly at me, his brows pulling down, darkening them to deep chocolate. “No one is out of your league, Fili, certainly not me.” He reached out and I instinctively moved my face to his hand. He rested it on my cheek, making no move to do that silly exploring thing they show in movies. He just cupped the side of my face gently. With infinite slowness, he drew me into a kiss and I let him.

He tasted like popcorn and beer and heaven.

The kiss was slow and sweet, neither of us being the aggressor. We just let it ride, enjoying the moment. His tongue and mine did that slow intimate dance that is so familiar and so thrilling. I loved every moment of it.

When he released me he smiled. “Seriously, describe yourself to me. I have no idea what you look like and I really need that.”

I took his hands and faced him. “Well, I guess you noticed I’m shorter than you are by about four inches. My mum says my hair is the color of honey, but I’d just call it dark blond. When it’s shorter like this it’s  wavy but if I let it grow a it really curls. My eyes are blue, mostly aqua, but they turn gray if I’m mad and dark blue when I’m turned on. I’m not a gym rat and I don’t have a six-pack other than what I buy at the store. I probably have too much hair on my chest for today’s taste and definitely too much on my belly, which is too soft from sitting for too long at the computer these days. Oh, and my nose is too big. It’s what they call Grecian, which is a polite way of saying “honker.”

He laughed. “Anything else relevant that I should know?”

“Well,” I said. “I have dimples when I smile.”

“Smile,” he commanded. He reached out and I directed his palm to my cheek.

I smiled and he slid his hand down and forward until he found my dimple. He dipped his thumb into it and I shivered. “I’ve always had a thing for dimples.”

And I’ve always had a thing for guys who had a thing for dimples.

His fingers traced forward to my lips and he brushed his thumb along the curve of my lips. “Tell me, Fili, what color are your eyes right now?”

“Dark blue,” I whispered. “They are very, very dark blue.”

His voice was low and almost harsh. “We should take this more slowly, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Yes, much more slowly.”

“Are we going to?”

“Probably not,” I whispered as I leaned forward to claim his lips and a shock of desire coursed down my spine. “Definitely not...”

He kept his hand on my cheek and drew me in for a long slow kiss. A little voice at the back of my mind was saying that this was way too fast, but I told it to shut the hell up and go back to sleep. Kili’s tongue explored my lower lip and then slid into my mouth. I met his tongue with mine and explored it in that way that feels so good and is impossible to describe.

I became aware after a while that someone was making soft whimpering noises. It was a few moments more before I realized that it was me. I couldn’t remember being this turned on before. It wasn’t just that Kili was handsome and it sure wasn’t that he was blind. There was some chemistry that I had not encountered this strongly before. My writer’s mind envisioned it as an incense-like plume of smoke winding around us, spiraling upward, binding us as one. That was the last coherent thought I had for a while.

I drew him into my arms as best I could on the sofa. He was lithe and twisted easily against me, pausing for a moment to adjust his left leg and then pressing closer, pushing me backward. At some point, I simply slid down until I was lying down with Kili on top of me. It wasn’t the best fit, but frankly, I didn’t really care.

I looked up into his beautiful eyes and was just lost. Lust had turned them nearly black and his lowered brows made them darker still. I knew my own eyes were equally dark, irises blown until I was nearly as blind as he was. I both felt like I was moving too quickly and in slow motion. I wound my fingers in those tempting dark curls and pulled his lips down to mine. His tongue dove deeply and I shuddered.

He moved up my body a little until our groins were perfectly matched and began a slow delicious pressure that surged and waned, trapping my erection against his. I could feel it plainly outlined against mine as the fabric of our pants slide together. I was so glad neither of us had chosen to wear jeans. Frottage was one of my favorite things – weird word – wonderful feeling.

My moan became almost a growl and Kili realized he had me. He surged upward, grinding himself against me, his lips descended, his tongue invaded my mouth for a moment before pulling out to lick slowly over my lips and down my chin. He came back up to lick again and I met his tongue with mine, licking back, sucking his lower lip and catching it with my teeth, wanting to consume him, to taste him everywhere. I felt as if I couldn’t get enough of him or him of me.

Our hands were busy, petting, holding, sliding up and down and over, feeling and teasing. I couldn’t let go of his hair. The long strands silken strands wound between my fingers and I used them to pull him closer. Loosened from behind his ears, his curls hung down like ribbons, swaying with his movements. I’d never thought that much about hair before, but the tumble of his curls trailing down over his eye in a Veronica Lake cascade turned me on wildly. He, in turn, ran his fingers through my hair pulling it forward, releasing the natural curl.

“I love your hair,” he whispered unexpectedly.

“Why? You are the one with beautiful hair,” I responded between kisses.

He pulled away for a moment. “Mine is so soft, I like the way yours is crisp against my fingers. Let it grow.” Kili tugged at the strands making me shiver. “Please tell me you’ll let it grow. I want to see you with curls.”

The moment he said it he went quiet, his body stiffening. He’d suddenly remembered he was blind. I felt like bursting into tears. Instead, I slid my arms around him and pulled him down hard against my chest.

“I’ll let it grow and then we will both have curls. We will be so adorable we will make everyone nauseous.”

I traced the line of his cheek and slid up under his eye to see if he was crying. He wasn’t, but I knew that he wanted to. “This will all take some time to get used to,” I whispered.

He burrowed his head against my chest muffling his voice. “I don’t know if I will ever get used to it.” He sniffled. “I don’t know if I can…”

I held him even closer, the fire of my passion mellowing into the need to hold him and keep him safe. Even as I thought it I chided myself. In rehabilitation you don’t make people feel safe; you find a way for them to make themselves feel safe. It was going to take a while, maybe a long while for him to reach that point in his life. All I could do was be there for him.

Our hot make-out session was over, chilled by the Arctic blast of reality. He needed to cuddle now and I wanted him curled up with me. Kili lay full-length on top of me, his right thigh nestled between mine, our erections having retreated to lie comfortably next to each other doing some snogging of their own. He pressed his face into the curve of my neck, giving me tiny sweet kisses. I continued to satisfy my desire to play with his curls. Every once in a while, he’d come up to kiss me softly, his scruff scraping against my shaved chin, making the skin tingle.

I could have lain there all night, never wanting anything else. I could feel his heart beating. Although muscular, he was almost painfully thin, probably partly genetics and partly from his ordeal. Since he ate like a horse it wouldn’t be long before he gained some of that lost weight back. I ran my hand down his side and could feel his ribs. He stiffened.

“Don’t.”

“Sorry, are you ticklish?” I moved my hand up to his back.

He shook his head and buried his face deeper. I hesitated, then unable to keep my hand still, I stroked down his spine. I could feel the hard little bumps of his vertebrae. He pulled sideways so that my hand was back on muscle. I pulled him closer, enfolding him with my arms. I kissed his ear and then whispered,

“What’s wrong, Kili? Talk to me.”

“I’m so fuckin’ skinny…. His voice trailed off.

There it was again, “fookin’” and my heart just melted. “Well, yes, you’re thin, but you’ve been through a lot, you’ll gain. I don’t mind that if you don’t mind that I’m a little fat.”

“It’s better than being a cnámh,” he said bitterly in Gaelic.

“A what?”

“Knav,” he repeated slowing down enough so I could hear the word. “It’s been my nickname since I was a kid. It means bone.”

I pulled his face up and kissed him gently. “There may not be much meat on you but what’s there is cherce.”

“What?”

I nuzzled his ear. “Shame on you for forgetting your classic movie quotes. That’s from _Pat and Mike_ where Spencer Tracy is talking about Katherine Hepburn.”

“So I’m ‘cherce’, am I?” I could feel his mood lightening.

“Mmmm, more like prime.” I kissed along his cheek. “Definitely prime.”

Kili kissed the tip of my nose. “I feel as if I should come up with a classic line, but I can’t think of any. All I can think of is being here in your arms.”

“I’ve wanted you since I first met you,” I confided.

He smiled. “Is that why you wouldn’t charge me?”

“I didn’t want to spoil the possibility of this happening.” He kissed me and I had to wait until he released me to talk again. “You’re smart and funny and brave.”

“And you like my hair.”

“That too.”

“And I’m much better looking than Iron Man.” He kissed the tip of my nose.

“Tony Stark can’t hold a candle to you.”

He adjusted himself a little so that he could face me. “When this happened to me I had changed my life. I wasn’t happy screwing around anymore and I wanted something permanent. I thought that James might be the one.” His face twisted at the thought, but he caught himself and continued. “Then I spent months thinking that no one would ever want me.”

I reached up to kiss him, but he avoided me and continued to talk. “I had a really good therapist who helped me to understand that a disability doesn’t condemn you to being alone. I thought he was full of shit until I met his wife and her guide dog.”

“Do you like dogs?” Kili asked, catching me off guard.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Do you like guys with dogs?” He kissed my neck nearly making me forget what he was saying.

“I think I’m falling in love with a guy who might get a dog,” I said softly.

“Really?” The question was so soft I could barely hear it.

I turned my head so that I could see him. It nearly broke my heart to see the worry in his eyes.

“Really. Really and for truly.” I paused, not really sure I should say the next thing that came across my mind. Then I shrugged, in for a dime…”You know, I have a fenced yard.”

He was silent for a moment too. Then he let out a long sign. “Good, that will make things easier.” It felt as if he’d made a decision. I could feel the tension leave his muscles and he snuggled in against me with a contented little sigh that made me clench pleasantly inside.

After a while, I had to take notice that my back was getting tired of having an adult male lying on top of me. “I need to move. I’m getting too old for snogging on sofas.”

“But you make such a good mattress,” he teased. “All soft and fuzzy.” He rolled off of me and slowly stood up. “The question is, what next?”

I stood up next to him. “Your house – your rules.”

He stood perfectly still for a long moment. He turned to where he thought I was and I quickly stepped sideways so that he faced me. His brows were pulled low and I could see that he was trying to decide what to do. I remained silent, letting Kili make up his own mind.

He looked up at me and sighed. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Taking him in my arms was the easiest decision I’ve ever made. “Never again, my love. Never again.”

I turned off the light and took his hand. He led me easily through the darkened apartment to the bedroom. I was in his world now. Right where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want the gumbo recipe write to me at drakkhammer@gmail.com It's from a friend who was born and raised in New Orleans.
> 
> Endnote #2: They lived happily ever after. Honest.


	3. Epilogue Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because every story has an epilogue.
> 
>  
> 
> My eternal thanks to Ceallaig for being my proofreader, and my inspiration.
> 
>  
> 
> Ps. The reference at the end is to this scene: [Bogie and Bacall](https://youtu.be/KY15R3yHBEI?t=1m10s)

 

I sat looking out the window into the back yard. The view was so much better than it had been three years ago. Now it included a lanky brunet who was throwing a ball for an equally lanky blond. They were both laughing as they played and I found myself laughing along with them.

Kili had applied to the Foundation for the Blind guide dog school as soon as he was able to walk a good distance without pain. Having him gone for three long weeks was miserable, but the training had to be immersive. He was only in South Auckland, but I was forbidden to call or visit. He could call me once a week and he snuck in a quick text now and again, but we both tried to be good so that he wasn’t distracted from his training.

 They matched him with Legolas, a rangy yellow Lab with a serious disposition and more intelligence than most people. They looked great together and they worked as a team almost from day one – once Legolas got his new human trained.

 A brief text from Kili had told me that he had not been attentive enough to the dog's signal to move to the left and Legolas deliberately ran him into a pole. The trainer had laughed so hard he couldn’t talk and from then on Kili made it a point to pay attention to everything around and, most of all, to Legolas.

 My life had changed so much I could scarcely believe it. I was selling magazine articles fairly regularly and at the moment, was supposed to be reviewing the final draft for my novel. I had to send it to a number of publishers before it was accepted but the one who did was very enthusiastic. Maybe I could make it as a writer after all.

Making it as a husband was somewhat more difficult.

It wasn't easy, as anyone who has suddenly become handicapped or had to live with someone who was, can tell you. Irish tempers and the constant frustration of being blind are not very compatible. In the beginning, I'd told him he was entitled to throw a huge fucking fit every now and then when things got too bad. He took me far too seriously and until his skills got better and the pain from his leg lessened I had to learn to bite my tongue until it bled as well as occasionally to duck. He was like a storm off the Irish sea -- fierce for a bit and then sunny again. I was certain that if I was patient the number of meltdowns would decrease. But even my long-cultivated level of patience became severely tested.

It came to a head one day just after he'd moved in.

It was a bad day. A storm was brewing and Kili's leg was hurting non-stop. Nothing helped, not walking, not using heat, or massages, not even the ones that I could sometimes talk him into letting me do. He refused to take the level of medication that would have silenced it. So he just had to try to put up with it. I could see that it was wearing him down. By late afternoon he was pacing. His spatial sense was very good and he usually navigated the house with no problems. But this time he veered just a little coming into the kitchen and clipped his bad knee on the doorjamb. The resulting explosion was immediate and spectacular.

I had seen the blood leave his face and knew that the pain had to be intense. His fist slammed into the wall, making a dent in the plaster and his swearing hit a level of invective I hadn't previously thought possible.

Us Kiwis are a laidback, peaceful people. We don't tend to get upset by much. We just tend to move back a few steps and wait for the storm to blow over. But after a few moments of observing Kili's rant, I began to think that the next room, if not the backyard might be the wise choice. I didn't have time to ponder my escape for very long when a book from the shelf next to him came sailing past my head to slam into the coffee pot. Goodbye Mr. Coffee. Oh well, I drink too much anyway.

I looked up just in time to see that he'd picked up the round glass bookend. That sucker weighed in the neighborhood of a half a kilo.

_Oh hell no!_

Fuck laid back and peace loving!

I have no memory of having moved from my place in the kitchen. I only remember taking him down with a skill I never managed to develop when I was playing rugby.

We hit the floor hard. I didn't have time to protect his leg, but I made sure that I hit him on his good side and tried to protect him as much as I could. Kili's head hit the floor hard enough to stun him allowing me to straddle him and pin his arms. The bookend rolled away as his muscles relaxed for a moment, but he recovered almost instantly.

"You son-of-a-bitch!" I didn't understand the other words, Irish Gaelic not being my strong suit but I knew that he was beyond pissed and almost crazy with pain.

His swing at me was unsuccessful. My grip on his wrists tightened and I managed to pin him before he could hit me. He's taller, but I'm bulkier and I used it against him. "Kili! Kili, stop!" I yelled in his face. He complied immediately, dropping his hands -- and then he went limp.

I don't think I've ever experienced so much misery. He was shaking, and crying, and apologizing, and trying to push me away. I avoided his hands and pulled him close to me. Rolling over, I pulled him against me and held on for dear life. At that moment I felt as if I were going under with him and we clung together, each using the other to stay afloat.

Kili kept his face turned from me, refusing to let me comfort him beyond the embrace. His rage had turned to shame and that was harder to bear than the anger. At that moment, I would have been almost glad to put the bookend back in his hand and let him throw it. Whatever it broke would have been less fragile than his heart.

I don't know how long we lay there. I held him as best I could, steadying him as the sobs shook his body to the bone. As a rehab professional, I had thought I understood what he was going through. As his friend and lover, I realized that I didn't have the slightest clue. Not the slightest.

When he could take a breath without releasing it in a sob, he whispered over and over that he was sorry...so sorry...

I buried my face in his hair, since he still wouldn't turn to face me, and said everything I could think of to comfort him. His outburst was understandable, excusable, and totally and completely forgivable. I didn't give a fuck about Mr. Coffee. Kili could break a Ming vase if it helped stop his pain. All I cared about was getting him to face me, and let me kiss him, and cherish him, and be there for him.

Eventually, the storm passed and he allowed me to gently tug his face around so that I could kiss him. He was a messy crier and was practically gooey with tears, sweat, and snot. I didn't care. I just wanted to soothe him and make it as much better as I could. He cuddled into me as I petted him, pulling damp curls from his forehead, and kissing him until the tears finally stopped. When he was ready, I helped him to his feet and led him to the bedroom. While he undressed, I went out, grabbed a handful of the peanut butter cookies Mum had dropped by yesterday, and a big glass of milk. I stopped by the loo, dampened a cloth with cool water, and got two of his pain pills out of the bottle. He was sitting disconsolately on the edge of the bed when I came in.

"Fili, I'm so sorry..."

I cut him off before he could say more. "If you say that word one more fucking time I'm going to choke you." I was exasperated enough to sound snappish.

His head jerked up in surprise at my tone. Feeling guilty for my tone, I leaned down and kissed him. "You're sorry. I forgive you. It was understandable. I'm not pissed. I love you. And you are going to take your pain meds and stop acting like a tough guy. Tough guys are assholes."

"Stupid pills make me woozy," he muttered, not meeting my eyes.

"Yeah, well so will me hitting you over the head until you take them." I sat next to him on the bed and handed him a cookie. "Eat the cookies and drink the milk so the pills won't bother your stomach."

He leaned over and gave me a little kiss. "Thank you." His voice was barely above a whisper and looked like he wanted to say more and then fell silent. He took another bite of cookie and sat looking down at his hands. He looked like a little boy and it tore my heart to see him so vulnerable.

"You won't let the pain get this bad again, right? It was all I could think of to say. Everything else sounded so maudlin and inadequate that I made myself remain silent.

Kili nodded and took another bite of cookie. I handed him the glass of milk. "You can't let the pain make you crazy again. I completely understand why you blew up, but you sent Mr. Coffee to the great coffee maker in the sky and you were about to chuck a fucking bookend in my direction. That shit has to stop. I think it's time to meet with your doctor to find better pain management." I paused because I didn't want to say it but I had to. "And it's time for you to get a fucking grip on your anger about what's happened to you. Tomorrow you're going to call the therapist your doctor recommended. Right?

He heaved a huge sigh. "Yeah. I'm..." He stopped himself before he could say it and I saw the barest hint of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

"Cookies are good," he replied instead.

"Yeah, cookies are very good."

I took the empty glass from him and set it on the nightstand. It didn't take much persuading to get him to lie back on the bed. I fussed for a minute, propping his leg with two pillows and then I joined him. Kili made a little mewing sound and nestled his head on my shoulder. He was tough as nails and the broken little whisper of sound went straight to my heart. I loved him so much it physically hurt sometimes. It wasn't just that he was beautiful. He was strong and resilient, more so than I would be in his place. He was also funny, quick with the craic and true to his heritage, could spin tales that kept me enthralled for hours. But he had to start taking better care of himself and if that meant I had to intervene, so be it. 

After a bit the pills worked and he fell asleep. I drifted off along with him, surprised at how tired the whole thing had made me. We slept until late afternoon and when we woke we lay snuggled together until I heard his stomach rumble. The cookies and milk had worn off and I was starving as well. Reluctant to leave him to fix dinner, I just called takeaway and ordered a Hawaiian pizza. I'd introduced Kili to the concept of pizza with pineapple and ham and it was love at first bite. We cuddled until the doorbell rang and I had to get up to answer it. 

He was silent on my return, still not meeting my eyes. He'd sat up enough to eat, so I handed him a Coke -- no beer for him with narcotics in his system, and set a plate on his lap. I put a wad of napkins between us and climbed in. It had crossed my mind to bring in a couple of candles to soften the lightening, but I thought it would look silly, so I threw a kitchen towel over the bedside light and let it go at that.

Kili ate slowly, looking both thoughtful and chastened. When there were only crusts left, he looked over at me. "I...I.." I held up a warning finger and the ghost of a smile warmed his dark eyes. "I love you."

That was a statement I could get behind. "I love you too, Kili. I will never stop loving you. You can throw the whole fucking house if you need to, just not in my direction. But we have to get a handle on this."

He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah we do. Or I do. I don't know why I'm so fucking pissed off all the time."

"It's a stage of grief," I replied. We were on my turf now and I knew the answer to this. "Before you can heal, you have to grieve for what you lost. You launched right into rehab and never got to work through what happened. It's popping up now because you're safe and your brain has the time to try to sort this shit out."

His lips thinned. "I hope this stage doesn't last much longer."

Shrugging, I said, "There are a few more to go, but some people don't hit all of them. If you do, don't sweat it, we'll work them out together"

Kili sat pushing a crust of pizza around with his forefinger. "How many more do I have to go through?"

"Well, the stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance." He cringed and I continued. "You probably won't do much if any bargaining because there is nothing to bargain for. People who are sick or losing a loved one hit this stage pretty hard though. And we can head off the depression by working on your pain management and by starting therapy."

"You keep saying "we." It was almost a whisper.

I turned so that I was facing him. "Kili, when you moved in here we became a team. When we admitted that we loved each other we stopped being Fili and Kili and became FiKi." That made him chuckle a little. If we're gonna make it, we have to be a partnership…an Us instead of a You and I."

Kili's hand crossed the bed until it found mine and he slid his fingers to twine my hand in his. "I've never really done this before. I'm not sure how it works."

"Me neither," I admitted. "In fact, I'm pretty fucking clueless, but I think it starts by agreeing to talk to each other when something is wrong and to really listen."

"But you're doing all the work." He let go of my hand, but I grabbed it before it got very far.

"You're doing a hell of a lot of work that you just don't give yourself credit for. Healing is a full time job. Besides, you've put up with my bullshit and whining when my writing was blocked or I got a manuscript back unopened. We're both new at this and we both dragged in baggage that sucks."

I was pretty sure that my self-pity parties when publishers didn't like me were worse than Kili's occasional explosions any day of the week. "We'll get past today and tomorrow we shall stand together as we deliver a eulogy for Mr. Coffee, who died far too young."

That did it. I got a giggle and then a chuckle and finally, Kili laughed. "Poor Mr. Coffee, I murdered him most horribly."

"In the kitchen with a book."

"In the pantry with a knife would have been less embarrassing."

"For who?" I countered. "I'm not sure I want to live with a man who stabs coffee machines in the pantry."

"But it's okay to live with a man who smashes them by throwing a book?" His smile had started to slip.

"Definitely," I confirmed. "That is a crime of passion and entirely understandable. Using a knife in the pantry just smacks of premeditation."

He pulled me into a hug. "You're insane."

"You got me." I whispered with a smile. "In oh, so many ways."

 

 

* * * * * *

 

That had been our only serious dust-up and the echoes of it had rattled around the corners of our minds for weeks.

It had been a very big deal when Kili had agreed to move in with me. Neither of us had ever shared space with a partner on a permanent basis. We both knew that this was more than just a temporary fling – it was a commitment and one that we hoped was going to last a lifetime.

I hadn’t proposed to him yet, nor had he broached the topic. Living together was one thing, but taking that final step was something neither of us was ready for. We both knew that we would be at some point, but we had to test the water first.

I’d told him it was like that first day I’d taken him down to Cheltenham Beach. You stick your toes in and then your foot and gradually wade deeper. Kili thought it was a hilarious comparison. He remembered how slowly he’d approached the ocean and how his fingers had bit deeper into my arm as he tried to hide his nervousness. He’d done a lot of swimming in Dublin, but he could see and it was very different to enter the open ocean as a blind man. He had to trust.

He didn’t see it the same as I did and he taught me the difference. The ocean scared him on a visceral level. Once in the water he had no control. There could be a shark, no matter how unlikely that might be. Worse, if I stopped talking to him, he’d become disoriented – just as likely to swim out to sea as he was toward shore.

But once we had it sorted, he played in the water like a puppy. Our splash fights were epic, leaving us both half drowned and gasping for breath. I’d dated a few guys I thought were fun, but no one could hold a candle to Kili for sheer exuberance. He was the most fun I’d ever had.

In the ocean my voice was his beacon, he relied on it to guide him and keep him safe. Neither he nor I had appreciated how important that was to him. He had learned to use other sounds to orient and guide himself, but we both knew that he instinctively turned to me.

I’d joked that if I ever lost my voice I’d need to get a whistle to blow. I’d forgotten the offhand comment until I came home to a small neatly wrapped box sitting next to my keyboard.

Kili had been smiling. “Open it,” he’d said, eyes twinkling that warm whiskey color that means he’s happy as fuck.

I did, to the accompaniment of barely-stifled giggles. _How can a grown man giggling make me weak in the knees?_ There was a small rectangular box that I guessed to be mahogany. Etched into the top in elegant calligraphy was a single phrase.

 

           

 

When I read it I started to laugh. I knew what was inside before I opened the box. I wasn’t disappointed. A tiny silver whistle on a chain was nestled against black velvet.

Smiling, I stood up and went into the bedroom…and blew…

 

 


	4. Epilogue Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Growing a relationship is hard. Letting go is even harder, but it's Christmas in New Zeland. The pohutukawa trees are in full bloom, and it's hard to be sad when the man you love makes an arse out of himself for you. Besides...there is Gran...

 

 

Christmas in New Zealand is like no place else on earth. Of course, I might be just a little prejudiced. The northern hemisphere might have snow, or in Dublin’s case, slush, but we have Santa on a surfboard, Christmas barbecues, and the incredible pohutukawa tree. A decorated fake evergreen is all well and good, especially when surrounded by presents, but there is nothing that says Christmas like a day at the beach under a huge tree covered in the most amazing red flowers.

Kili had never seen Christmas in New Zealand, so I had to show it to him with words.

I’d gotten very, very good at describing things. I had no choice.

The first time we made love it was all fire, and lust, and to be honest, I don’t remember very much about it except that I knew somewhere between my orgasm and his that I would never want anyone else in my life or in my bed.

The second time—well, maybe it was the fourth or fifth, but it was the next day at any rate--I found that Kili was very visual in his sexuality. He had always been the guy who wanted the lights on. He was more turned on by what he saw than what he felt.

Not so good when you can no longer see anything.

We were in the middle of making love, having progressed from mouth and hands to me straddling him, grinding our bodies together, cocks trapped between us and enough heat rising to bubble the paint on the ceiling.

When Kili went soft.

His erection vanished as quickly as a popped balloon and I went from being one step from Nirvana to cradling a sobbing Irishman who was crying as if his heart was broken.

And just maybe it was.

No man likes to even hear the whisper of the word _impotent_ , let alone have it happen in the midst of what should have been an epic fuck.

Kili’s brain added the word _scared_ to the word _impotent_ and that sent him reeling over the edge. I’d never talked anyone down from this kind of mental crash before and I could feel myself metaphorically overturning every box and ripping out every drawer in the somewhat dusty rehab part of my brain.

Medically, I knew there was nothing wrong with him, but he didn’t know that and it took me a good hour to go through every bit of knowledge I had about the brain, the damage Kili had suffered in the crash and my somewhat shaky store of information on sexual dysfunction.

Blessedly, he listened, sniffling occasionally and taking breaks for impressive nose blows. I got him to relax by stroking his chest and arms with the tips of my fingers. When I felt his tension ease, I asked him what he’d been thinking about when he lost it.

“How beautiful you must look,” he’d whispered.

“And then you realized that you couldn’t see me?” I could barely get the words out. I could feel his frustration and pain as if it were my own. Once more I’d realized that I completely misunderstood what it was like to be blind. Once more I was completely clueless.

He nodded and I leaned down to kiss him. He clung so tightly to me that I couldn’t breathe. I remember thinking that it would be a glorious way to die. But he let go and we started to talk.

Really talk.

Ever since Kili could remember, he had been an intensely visual person. Now he was having trouble coping, not only with the inconveniences that came with being blind but the loss of a sense that, for lack of a better term, brought things to life. It was as if a person lost their sense of taste. They could still eat, but the pleasure would be gone.

Fortunately, there was a solution—well, as close to one as we could get. Being a writer came in handy, as I’d discovered when narrating movies for Kili. It came even more in handy in the bedroom. I learned to paint word-pictures of what we were doing and how each of us looked.

It was hard at first because I don’t normally talk dirty, not even in the bedroom, but I had to learn for Kili’s sake.

Except where do you learn to talk the kind of dirty that he needed?

Porn video didn’t work. It’s a visual medium by definition and what dialog there was…well…sucked.

So, I hit on a few of the many written porn sites. It was way past embarrassing. What passed for writing was terrifying awful. Apparently, if you could press the “publish” button on the site it would put it up in with all its myriad warts intact for the world to see/read/vomit over. I couldn’t imagine anyone reading it, let alone wanking to it.

I finally settled on a book of erotic gay short stories written, oddly enough, by women. This was more like it. Instead of grunts and the occasional verb or adjective, I got actual narration. By the second story, I had a raging hard-on. By the third, I was literally aching to try it out.

Kili was a little surprised when I interrupted his Braille practice. He leaned back into me as a nuzzled his neck and promised to tell him a bedtime story. He was only too willing to follow me back to the bedroom and practice his Braille skills on me, while I practiced my narration.

Let’s just say it went brilliantly.

I talked and he listened and then he started to talk as well. He told me how gorgeous I was and how much he loved listening to me because my accent made everything sexier. I had never thought about the fact that I had one. I loved the music of his soft Dublin brogue but had never thought that my accent was anything special. He disagreed and said he could listen to me forever. That feeling was definitely mutual.

An unexpected fringe benefit was that I learned to appreciate my own body. I’d always thought of myself as too short, too stocky, too average in every regard. He needed to see the beauty in me, and by showing it to him I began to see it as well.

With sex sorted out, we could just relax and be together. I was surprised at how easily I slipped into being one half of an Us. I could tell that Kili did, too. His jitters calmed down and his temper eased. He’d been a smoker before the accident, gave it up in the hospital, started to pick it up again, only to try vaping and then quitting completely when he realized I was sensitive to the vapor as well as the smoke.

I’d felt a bit guilty as I knew that it helped him cope when his nerves got the best of him. It wasn’t until several months after he’d quit I’d found out he was okay with giving it up entirely.

It was a rainy Saturday and we were cuddling on the couch in the living room listening to the rain hit the windows and snogging now and again. “I don’t miss it,” he’d said out of the blue and apropos of nothing.

I looked around. “Miss what?”

He shrugged and smiled up at me. “Smoking. I thought I would. I did for awhile and then I stopped thinking about it.”

I heaved a sigh and adjusted my position so that I could see him better. “So what made you think about it now?”

“I was thinking about my life and I guess some of the things that I miss.” He reached up and dragged scratchy fingertips through my beard, making me purr. “I just realized that wasn’t one of them.

“One of the things we talked about in therapy this week was letting things go when I can’t change them. But we also talked about letting things go because it was time. Smoking was one of them. My getting pissed as fuck every time I get frustrated was another.”

He smiled at me, dark eyes shading to warm whisky. “I don’t miss that at all.”

“I don’t miss it, either.” His expression was comical. Unable to resist I laughed and pulled him in for a kiss. “You’re not so adorable when you’re throwing bookends.”

“Mr. Coffee didn’t think so, either.” His expression was embarrassment mixed with laughter. “Seriously, I don’t know how you put up with me. Talk about being an asshole…”

I shrugged, feeling the weight of him on my chest as I did. “Yeah, you were. I was hoping it wasn’t going to last and it didn’t, so I don’t even think about it anymore. It was just one of those shitty milestones a lot of people with head trauma pass through.”

I could feel him tense. I tangled my fingers in his curls. God, how I love those curls. “I think our milestones have moved on to the normal ones that come with a relationship.”

He took a breath and turned over, stretching across me like a cat. “Yeah, now it’s just decisions like whether to order pizza or Thai.”

At the mention of food, my stomach rumbled, but he pressed me back, hands sliding under my shirt. That made me forget about food. I forgot about everything that wasn’t directly related to what Kili was doing to me. It didn’t matter what it was – I’d give him a lifetime to stop it.

As time wore on the Holiday season approached and as it did the lack of communication with his family wore on Kili. He didn’t say anything but I noticed that he took more of an interest in the post, trying unsuccessfully to hide his disappointment when no card or letter postmarked Dublin ever arrived. As we got closer to Christmas he seemed more resigned that it wasn’t going to happen. It broke my heart and gave my mother a full-on fit of “I’m gonna kill the bitch!” It took me a while to cool that one down. Mum might be three generations removed from her Aran Island ancestors, but she still had an Irish temper.

Since she couldn’t find Kili’s mother to do murder, she settled for taking him Christmas shopping so that he could buy “surprises.” I didn’t know what they were as they were stashed in a “secret” place in the closet and I was forbidden to even shake them. I went out and did my own Christmas shopping, coming home tiptoe, keeping bags from rattling and telling obvious lies about where I’d been. I hadn’t had this much fun since I was a child.

When the time finally arrived, Christmas was the most fun I could ever remember it being. We had been together for nearly seven months and living together for five, but Christmas in New Zealand was a whole new experience that I couldn’t wait to show him. I took Kili down to the park for the festival to officially greet Santa. And I had to introduce him to the gorgeous pohutukawa tree, whereupon I forgot that I was in my thirties and not still ten years old, and nearly killed myself climbing one to get a flower for him. In my enthusiasm, I also manage to forget that pohutukawa flowers can double for itching powder. Two plasters fixed me up, but not nearly as much as his kisses and his declaration that he loved me. There we were, two itchy saps under a flowering red tree, hugging and kissing and scandalizing the bystanders.

It was the first time he said it and I would always remember him clutching the flowers I picked, throwing his arms around me and saying the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. It was the first time he ever said, “I love you.” It almost made me wish I’d fallen out of a tree months earlier.

We did all the typical things couples do and didn’t feel a bit like a cliché. We bought a little tree and decorated it together. Kili’s tolerance for frustration was steadily improving and when he couldn’t figure out how to put the lights on the tree, he simply threw a loop of them over my head and pulled me in for a kiss. And then another…

The tree didn’t actually get decorated until the next day.

On Christmas Eve, we went down to Orewa Beach. I got out the small portable barbecue; we packed the chilly bin with hot dogs, potato salad, beer, and blankets to ward off the chill of the ocean. We arrived rather late, so we had a sizeable area of the beach to ourselves. Kili unpacked the blanket and put the beer within reach while I got the coals heating in the BBQ.

I wished he could see the stars come out and the Southern Cross rise overhead, but I felt comfortable describing it and that seemed to satisfy him. We bundled together in the blankets. Kili leaned against me with a happy sigh and I thought to myself that I didn’t even have to wish on a falling star, this wish came true all on its own.

We went to bed late and got to sleep even later for a slow sleepy session that was all hands and tongues and soft sighs. We were tired but the cuddles at the beach had kindled a low fire that refused to go out. For the first time, Kili didn’t want me to talk, he just wanted to experience and I made sure that what he experienced was fulfilling. It truly is at least as good to give as to receive.

Christmas morning was lazy and sweet, with a side order of hot. My beautiful Irishman had come back from the beach chilled and sleepy. He was neither of those things the next morning. I received my first gift of the day before I was even completely awake. He, of course, allowed me to reciprocate and by the time we managed to haul out of bed, get our clothes, and a mutual shower that threatened to get out of hand, we were starving.

It's traditional to open your Christmas presents with the family, but Kili was not to be trifled with. "I have a present for you," he insisted.

"Good. I got one for you." I peered into the fridge looking for the orange juice. “Got several, in fact.”

"Yeah, me too, but I want you to open this one now." He leaned against the fridge door, nearly pushing it shut.

I pulled it back open and retrieved the juice. "Family tradition is to drag our booty to the house of whatever relative we’re obligated to visit and have a huge feast. When we can find the energy to shove away from the table and just before we lapse into a food coma we will open them one by one, expressing shock and awe at the gift selecting, wrapping and presentation of various family members." Kili made a soft little sound between a sigh and that ghastly sound a mouse probably makes when it gets stepped on.

"Suck it up," I said cheerfully between swallows of juice straight from the bottle (was there any other way to drink it?) "It could be worse, Auntie Rose could be coming. Blessedly she succumbed to a cold last year that took up permanent residence in her incredibly ample bosoms. Hopefully she is still wheezing and we shall be spared her running commentary on how everyone's gifts are inappropriate or just plain cheap."

"Really?" The mouse had given way to a worried five-year-old. His brows were pinched, but I stood tiptoe and pressed a kiss to smooth them. "Everyone has a crappy relative. Don't you?"

Suddenly he laughed and the world was ten shades brighter. "Yeah. My cousin Rich always just sort of rolls through the door, hoovers up half the food, says something rude and then rolls back out again."

"At least Auntie Rose usually brings a Pavlova that is at least marginally eatable." I chuckled at the thought I had blooming. "We should get these two together and they could roll away into the sunset."

"Don't tempt me," he teased. "But really, I want you to open your present now, before breakfast." His expression and body language let me know in no uncertain terms that this present was very important. Then Kili cheated outrageously by putting on that Irish puppy face and I relented.

He led me to the living room and parked me on the couch. Holding up one finger to reinforce that I was to stay where I was, Kili went over to the tree and ran his fingers lightly over the packages, seeking the one he wanted. When he was satisfied that he had the right one, he carried it back and held it out in my direction. I took it from him and set it on my lap.

"Open it!" He was practically quivering with eagerness.

I laughed as I obediently started to unfasten the tape. I'm one of those compulsively neat present unwrappers, pulling the tape off and then folding the paper. I was two pieces of tape down when I looked up and realized that Kili was going to have a stroke if I didn't hurry the hell up. Abandoning caution and screw the paper, I tore a great rent down the side of the box and sat there in stunned silence.

And then I burst out laughing.

"What? What!" Kili's tone jerked my attention back to him. He had a look of horror on his face.

“Shit!” I said, lurching to my feet. “It’s fucking brilliant. Honest, it is.” I pulled him close, desperate to make up for scaring him. I peppered his face with kisses. "I love you and I love your present."

Utterly mystified, his expression was now caught between worried and hopeful, all big eyes and curls. "Then you like it?"

"I love it." I replied, laughter making my voice harsh. "I like it so bloody much that I bought you the same fucking thing."

"You didn't!" His eyes widened and he looked toward the tree and then back at me.

"I did. Us two geniuses managed to not only get the same thing but the exact same model of Mr. Coffee."

It was Kili's turn to laugh and we stood there like idiots, hugging and laughing and kissing until we were breathless.

“I love you so much,” I couldn’t stop saying it. I wanted every morning to be like this.

He cuddled into my arms, lips nibbling softly at my neck. “At least I didn’t fuck up completely.” The tone let me know he was only half kidding.

“You didn’t fuck up in any way, shape, or form.” I had to dig down a little, but I found his lips and claimed them. When I got my breath back I reassured him. “We just made a memory. We’ll be telling this story for years.”

He laughed and I felt him quake against me. “What will we do with the spare? I could return this one and get you something that you like.”

I cupped his face in one hand, tracing the edge of his scruff with my thumb. “Oh no, you are _not_ getting this one out of my hands. It’s my present and I love it. I’m going to smile every time I see it sitting there on the counter in one piece.”

Kili twisted his head and kissed my palm. “But we don’t need two of them.”

I shrugged. “Why don’t you take it to work with you? I already opened it and marked the buttons. From what you told me about the coffee there, you could end up being the office coffee hero.”

He looked at me, the light having come back into his eyes, changing them nearly to gold. “Yeah, I could do that.”

I suppose there was more to be said, but this was about as long as I could stand him being this close and not kissing him. By the time we came up for air the matter had long been settled and we were starving.

Kili baptized Mr. Coffee and deftly set it up. Since it was different than our old model he required an orientation to the buttons on it. Once explained and explored, he set about making the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had, although I might, of course, be prejudiced.

I started making pancakes in spite of entirely too much assistance from one eager but clueless Irishman, who was now bored and wanting to help. “Do you even pancake in Dublin?” I finally asked in exasperation as he handed me the bottle of vanilla from the cabinet.

He looked hurt and, trust me, no one on earth can look hurt like Kili can. His downcast lashes shaded his eyes and he started to leave the kitchen, but I grabbed his arm. “Why didn’t you just say Christmas pancakes need vanilla?”

He heaved a sigh, his lips quirking downward. Long fingers dragged through unruly curls, making my heart skip a beat. “Didn’t know how.” I knew from his expression that he’d gotten lost in memories of Christmas past and hadn’t been able to shake it off. He dragged his fingers through his hair and whispered, “Sorry.”

Before I could say anything, he turned and went over to the to the cupboard. He rummaged around and brought back two small rectangular containers. “Which ever one of these is cinnamon, we should use that, too.”

I had to chuckle. “Well you’ve found rosemary and thyme, so you have half a song lyric, but not cinnamon.”

I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. “I nuzzled his cheek and then kissed his nose, something that always made him smile. “We gotta get better at this whole communication thing – and at labeling the spices.”

“We gotta get better at being partners,” I continued. “You used to cook when you lived alone, but you’ve been slacking off because I’ve been doing too much.” I gave him a peck on the nose. “How about if we make your Christmas pancakes together and the hell with the mess and the fact that I’ve never had vanilla and cinnamon in ‘em before?”

Kili’s eyes sparkled and his face slid into that sweet secretive smile that drove me crazy. “That’d be brilliant. I need to work on ‘being more assertive’ as my therapist puts it.”

I grinned. “You’re plenty assertive when you want to be.”

“If I said ‘get your arse in the bedroom right now so that I can give you your Christmas present!’ would that be assertive enough?”

“I thought you already gave me that?” I teased back at him.

He winked. “I’m not done with you yet. You can still walk.” His smile was wicked and the little lick he gave his lips made me forget all about breakfast and Mr. Coffee. Fuck pancakes, this was one order I intended to follow because I do just love unwrapping presents at Christmas.

 

When we could finally haul out of bed--for the second time that day—we hurried out the door and were off to my folks’ house to celebrate. When we came in, Kili was surprised to find that the whole family had gathered. My brother Matt and his wife Michelle had driven up from Wellington along with their two hellions Sam and Bryan. Their two boys were contained only when they were reminded that Captain America and Iron Man wouldn’t run around screaming like maniacs. Yeah, I have two Iron Men in my life and I’m loving it.

Matt walked up to Kili and extended his hand. Of course, Kili made no move to take it. “Ask,” I whispered.

Kili was confused. “Ask what?”

Matt snorted derisively. “Ask me what a git I am for not saying I’m glad to finally meet you and want to shake your hand.”

Kili’s eyebrows went up and he reached out to shake hands. My brother, the rugby player, grabbed his hand and pumped it hard. Then without preamble, he pulled Kili in for a bear hug. “Welcome to the family, bro,” was all that my brother managed before the boys came over and threw their arms around Kili’s legs.

They added their greetings, stopping only when Michelle came over to peel them loose. She hugged Kili, being a bit more gentle than my brother. “Welcome to the family, Kili.” She took his other hand and squeezed it. “You’ve been officially adopted, there’s no escaping now.”

Kili was smiling and then burst into laughter. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” The look he gave me made me blush all the way down to my toes.

Mum brought out glasses of cider (non-alcoholic for the boys) and we drank a toast to Kili and to everyone being together, especially Gran and Gramps. Every Christmas with them both was a blessing. Gramps was getting forgetful, but Gran at eighty-nine was still as sharp as a razor. She took one look at Kili and gave me a thumbs-up. I was still grinning when she dropped my jaw and everyone else’s by walking up to Kili, tilting her head back and demanding, “So when are you two going to get married and make an honest man of my grandson?”

Kili spit the cider he was sipping onto his front and the rush for napkins mitigated the shock of her comment for the moment.

“Gran!” we all said in unison.

“What? I’m not getting any younger and I’d like you to get married while I still remember who you are.” She looked belligerent, but the twinkle in her eyes gave her away.

Kili had no idea what to say, so he settled for blushing adorably. I was dying too, but I was a lot more used to Gran’s candor. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t be so pushy, you’ll scare him.”

She snorted. “I see the way he looks at you. Nothing could scare him away.” She stood tiptoe and gave me a peck on the check. “You are a lucky man and so is he.”

Mum, who could always be counted on to rescue me, suddenly announced that it was time to eat. By the way the food came to the table one dish at a time that statement was highly suspect, but we all bought into it, glad to have something else to talk about.

I reached under the table and rested my hand on Kili’s knee. He slid his hand down and tangled his fingers with mine, squeezing gently. He wrote, “I love you,” on my thigh with his finger and I grinned like an idiot, not caring who saw me. Kili wasn’t a man who easily spoke about his feelings, but I’d never felt closer to him than I did at that moment. I’d thought about marriage, but right now I was content with what I had and I think he was as well.

When the main course as served, Kili was surprised that we had roast turkey and dressing. Matt teased him by asking if he thought we’d cook up a few kiwis instead, while both boys chastised him for even thinking about eating our national bird. Said boys were fascinated by Kili’s blindness and stared so hard at him while he ate that my brother leaned over and promised them something dire. They paid attention to their own plates after that, but stole glances at Kili as he deftly maneuvered his way around his plate. He used the tips of his fingers as he identified everything, then wiped his hand on the napkin, and proceeded to eat as like a man who’d skipped breakfast.

If I hadn’t already been in love, Kili would have stolen my heart a hundred times over that day. The pain of missing his own family didn’t show and he launched into being part of mine with all his heart. After we ate, he showed both boys how to help him get around an apartment he wasn’t completely familiar with. They were apt pupils and, until Matt intervened, pestered him by constantly asking if he didn’t need to go to the kitchen or the bathroom. They’d asked him about that too and were somewhat disappointed that he went just like they did, but he made up for it by promising to teach them how to eat dessert like a blind man.

As promised, he sat them down, made them close their eyes and then gently use the fingers on their left hand to explore around the outside of the plate to find out exactly where the food was. Once their fingers were wiped on a napkin, they dug in only to find that eating with your eyes closed was more of a challenge than they’d thought. The end result was much hilarity for all, a lot of used napkins, and two stuff boys who were insufferably proud of their new skill.

The gift exchange went well with no one giving the boys clothing this time (we certainly didn’t.) The tale of the two Mr. Coffee machines was so well received that I knew it was going to pass into family legend. Kili was surprised to find so many presents with his name on them. “You’re part of the family, too,” Mum told him as she handed him the box with the jumper she’d been knitting since we moved in together.

He managed a somewhat shaky, “Thank you,” and then sat for the rest of the exchange wearing that red jumper and periodically grinning like a kid who just found out that Santa is real. He was too hot, but he didn’t care. He was happy and loved and that was all that mattered. He didn’t even mind sharing custody of his collectible Iron Man figurine with the boys. That they were willing to give it back spoke volumes about their feelings for him as did the fact that both of them used him for a pillow when they finally lost their battle to stay awake. That was when Dad, who has never been all that comfortable with his eldest being gay, fell in love with Kili. I could see from the look he gave me that I had his approval and that was the best Christmas present of all.

It was late when we finally had to say our goodbyes. Gran and Gramps were staying in the spare bedroom, aka Mum’s sewing room, and Matt and crew were not too far away in a hotel.

When I’d asked him why they didn’t stay with us, he’d winked at me and said that he remembered being newly in love and he wouldn’t have wanted anyone in his guest room for a week, let alone two someones complete with two screaming kids. I had to admit that he had a point, so I let it go.

When we left, Kili gave Gran an extra long hug and whispered something in her ear that made her giggle like a schoolgirl. The rotter wouldn’t tell me what it was, but their little exchange sealed the deal. Gran was in love forever.

And so was I.

 


	5. The Ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are proposals to be made and then a wedding to both plan and carry off...but first a miracle to bring light into their lives. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for coming along on this ride. It's been a fun story to write (writer's block/anxiety and all.) Everyone needs more rainbows in their lives.

 

 

The week between Christmas and New Years was a nice bit of downtime. Kili had a few days off of work and we shamelessly spent them fucking each other into next week…or the next year as it were.

My newfound skill at narrating everything I was doing proved incredibly helpful to us both. I had no idea that talking dirty was so sexy. Okay, so I’m sheltered, but I just didn’t date those kinds of guys. Now I had to learn the lingo and I found that I liked doing it — I liked it a lot.

Kili taught me a lot of things. He taught me that I could bottom without pain and that there was a really good reason why he enjoyed it. Cock, meet prostate…

I was really glad that our closest neighbor had taken the family on holiday to Bali. While I personally couldn’t imagine Christmas in Bali, I appreciated that they could and were far enough away not to hear me when I had my first orgasm with Kili inside me. It was epic. And earsplitting.

I may never live it down...

It was nearly a week after Christmas, but I got the best present ever – even better than my duplicate Mr. Coffee. The day had been quiet with cuddles and me reading poetry to Kili. I never in my wildest dreams pictured myself actually liking poetry, but he introduced me to William Butler Yeats, and be damned if I didn’t fall in love with the music and magic in his words.

Kili was curled into my arm as I balanced the book on the arm of the sofa. I nuzzled his forehead, pushing back a stray curl with my lips. He sighed happily and I started to read “A Drinking Song”:

 _Wine comes in at the mouth_  
_And love comes in at the eye;_  
_That’s all we shall know for truth_  
_Before we grow old and die._  
_I lift the glass to my mouth,  
_ _I look at you, and I sigh._

And sigh I did. And it earned me another kiss. I sighed again and thought that I could never be happier.

I was wrong.

The sun was setting and when it became too dark to read, I leaned over and switched on the lamp next to me.

“I can see that.” Kili’s voice was so soft that I could barely hear him.

I froze. “You can see what?”

“The light. I can see that you turned the light on. It’s not dark in here anymore.”

If Kili said anything else, I didn’t hear it. I think I started to cry. I don’t remember. All I remember is pulling him close and hugging him in celebration. My love could see the light. It didn’t matter that he still couldn’t even see shapes – that he could see anything was a miracle!

When we could finally talk, he told me that he’d thought he was seeing light but was worried that it might just be his imagination. He hadn’t wanted to tell me until he was sure. A trip to the doctor the day before had confirmed that he wasn’t imagining it. All he needed was to find the right time to tell me.

“The doctor said I might not get any more vision back than just light perception.” He grinned happily at me. “But it’s really good not to be in the dark all the time.”

We spent the rest of the evening celebrating by turning on every light in the bloody house and getting happily drunk on laughter and the bottle of Two Paddocks Pinot Noir I’d been saving for New Year's Eve. The sex was brilliant – literally. Kili humored me by not saying a word as I dragged every light I could move into the bedroom. Our boudoir was lit up like noon on the sun and it was fucking amazing.

By comparison, New Year’s Eve was pretty dull. I never liked crowds and rarely ventured down to see the fireworks at Auckland Harbor. This year was no different. Spending the evening on the sofa cuddled up to the love of my life snuggling and sipping cider seemed like a much better option. I put the fireworks show on TV for ambiance, but with all the lights on it paled next to the fireworks going on in my heart.

Kili had been quiet all day. He still hadn’t heard from his folks, even though he’d sent a Christmas card and a box of presents. I wanted to fly to Dublin and kick their sorry arses, but he was phlegmatic about it. They were older than my parents--his mother was into her forties when he was born, and they were still firmly wedged in the fifties. Gay marriage might be legal, but they were convinced that homosexuality was a deadly sin and would be punished in this life and the next. He had known that he would lose them when he came out to support the referendum. He’d simply decided that he could no longer live a lie. I still can’t believe how much courage that must have taken. He was stronger than I will ever be and I loved him so much that it hurt sometimes.

My family had quickly become his family and with the love and acceptance, he had bloomed. I’d seen his hesitancy fade as he’d realized that he could be himself around me and mine. I knew that I was blessed to have such a loving family and adored sharing them with him. We’d be going over to Mum and Dad’s for our traditional New Year’s get-together, which would involve a huge feed and cricket. Since Kili was a big fan of all of Ireland Irish sports and since Ireland was playing the Black Caps, I anticipated much cheering and the piss being taken by all.

A curl had escaped the clutches of his bun and rested against the edge of his left eye. I slid it behind his ear and pressed a kiss on to his forehead. He snuggled deeper into the crook of my arm. “Last year at this time I thought my life was pretty well fucked. No family, my boyfriend I moved here for had shot through, my job was shaky with them restructuring. I spent New Years drinking myself stupid in my flat.”

I must have made a little noise in sympathy because he budged up and kissed me gently. “S’okay. Not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s not like we chose to be gay. Not that we can ever convince some people of that.”

I unfastened the bun and teased his hair into the glorious dark tangle of curls that I loved to play with. “I’m so sorry you had to go through so much. It’s not fair.”

“No,” he agreed, “it isn’t, but life isn’t very fair. You have to grab onto the good things and never let go.” His hand fisted the front of my shirt and pulled me closer. His lips tasted of cider and I knew if I kissed him long enough I could get drunk. That was a pleasant enough thought to warrant follow-through.

My head was spinning from the alcohol, and the kisses, and the fact that I was more in love than I’d ever dreamed of being. Fireworks were exploding on the TV, their sound echoing what I was feeling inside. I decided to take a chance because New Year’s Eve is the time for new beginnings.

“Do you really like being part of my family?” I didn’t know where to start, so I was making it up as I went along.

Kili snorted and poked my tummy for asking him a rhetorical question. “Jaysus, babe, I keep saying I do. You want me to tattoo it on my fucking forehead?”

I suppressed a smile and forged ahead. “How would you like to become a permanent part of the family?”

He tensed in response. Well, that apparently sounded more romantic in my head. I slid off the couch and onto the floor, being somewhat less than graceful as I got to my knees in front of Kili.

I took his hand and pressed it between mine. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my husband?” My voice was shaking, nearly cracking on the last word. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll have me.”

I wasn’t at all prepared for having him launch himself off the sofa into my arms. We went over backward onto the rug together. I took that and the hard kiss as a “yes,” but it wasn’t until he said the word over and over that I let myself believe that he wanted it as much as I did.

He was crying and when he rolled over on top of me, thoroughly pinning me beneath him, his tears fell like warm rain on my cheeks. I looked up into his beautiful face knowing that he was all that I wanted and would ever want.

“You beat me to it,” he sniffled, his lower lip rounding into a pretend-pout. “I promised Gran that I’d propose.”

My tears were mixing with his and I struggled to find my voice. “Well, you can’t go back on a promise.”

He propped himself up on one elbow and dragged the back of his hand across his eyes. They were dark nearly black, his brows pulled down in concentration as he searched for the words.

“Fili, when I thought everything possible had been taken from me, you came along. You took my hand and you never let go.” His eyes lightened and the twinkle came back into them. His voice softened and he whispered. “Táim i ngrá leat, a chuisle mo chroí, mo stóirín. Tá mo chroí istigh ionat. Beidh grá agam duit go. Will you marry me?”

It was my turn to cry. “A thousand times, yes.” I coughed to clear the clench in my throat. “I don’t know what the rest means, but I love hearing it.”

Kili leaned down and kissed me, trailing his tongue tantalizingly across my cupid’s bow. “I love you, my heart’s pulse, my treasure. My heart is yours. I will love you forever.”

“Which one of that is, ‘I will love you forever’?”

“Beidh grá agam duit go,” he repeated softly.

I pulled him down and nuzzled against his cheek. “Beidh grá agam duit go,” I whispered into his ear. I slaughtered the pronunciation, but neither of us cared. I had a lifetime ahead to learn how to say it.

 

* * * * * * *

 

It was amazing to make love to my fiancé and even more amazing to wake up knowing that the man next to me had consented to be my husband and I to being his. What an incredible way to start the New Year. Sleepy sex turned into hot sex, turned into OMFG! sex and we barely made it out of bed in time to dress, never mind to have any breakfast. But it was another “big feed” day, so I had no great expectations that we would starve.

New Years Day used to be celebrated at my house with a barbie and more food than the NZ Army could eat, then playing cricket until it was time for the traditional match to come on the telly. Back then the house wasn’t mine yet but Dad’s stroke made taking care of a house impossible. I’d taken the place and he still wasn’t keen on coming back. He’d practically built the house and it held too many memories of the days when he asked help of no one and wielded a hammer like Thor. He was lucky that he’d recovered a lot of function on his left side, but he still wasn’t strong, so making the hard decision to move into an accessible flat had been a wise choice, even if it had broken something inside him. Mum saw it and just gently changed the way celebrations were handled. Dad, being the typical stoic Kiwi, took it in stride. I’m sure it bothered him but he never let on that it did.

The day started off surprisingly normal and, at first, no one seemed to notice that I was floating about a foot off of the floor. From the look on Kili’s face, I don’t think the bottom of his shoes gathered much dust either. I’m sure the stupid grins we were both sporting was the tip-off, to Gran anyway.

She smiled at me, commandeered Kili and steered him into the kitchen at a rate that I didn’t think anyone of her age could achieve. The look on his face as he was pulled along was amused with a touch of horror as her speed picked up. Being Gran, she deftly maneuvered him around the furniture and through the kitchen door with the skill of the freestyle skier that she used to be.

I knew that I wasn’t going to see him again until Gran was done pumping him for information. She had the skills of a trained interrogator and Kili was no James Bond. The beans were about to be really and truly spilled. The thought made my grin even wider, making Dad look at me like I had two heads.

“You okay, boy?” His head was cocked as if he wondered if I’d look less idiotic sideways.

“Nah yeah,” I replied with a shrug. “Stayed up too late. Got up too late. What year is this, anyway?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Go get a cuppa and see if the caffeine raises your IQ.”

Mum handed me a cup of tea strong enough to stand without the cup and hot enough to melt steel. I don’t know if it raised my IQ but after my first sip, I was certainly more awake.

I coughed and asked, “What’s the octane on this stuff?”

“Gran made it,” Mum replied. “Don’t complain. When she was alive, your Nan made tea that could remove varnish. Your dad lived in fear of tea time at her house.”

I was about to give a snappy rejoinder when Matt and Michelle arrived, the boys galloping past us all in search of Kili. It was all I could do to wrangle them for a couple of minutes to give Gran time to finish the inquisition.

Kili emerged from the kitchen just in time to be inundated by two little Kiwis demanding more Irish folk tales, the bloodier the better. They immediately grabbed him, forgetting everything I’d taught them about how to do sighted guide, and dragged him to the couch. Fortunately, he made it without a major incident and gathered them, and the rest of us, in for story time.

I watched Dad watching his grandsons and Kili. He was smiling at their enjoyment of the tale and listening pretty hard himself. Dad had been a construction worker, under educated and rough around the edges, and yet he’d accepted me unconditionally, never questioning my sexuality or life choices. He was everything a son should have in a dad and now he’d embraced Kili with the same quiet warmth. I loved him so much it hurt.

I got up and went over to his chair. Leaning over, I gave him a hug.

“What was that for?” He was smiling but I could see he was puzzled.

“For being the best dad ever.”

Matt appeared at my elbow. “I second that,” he said bending to give Dad another hug.

In a heartbeat, the boys launched themselves off the sofa and my father found himself with a lapful of squirming kids giving him hugs and kisses and proclaiming him the “Best Granddad ever!”

He was blushing, but we could all see that he was chuffed by all the attention. The non-demonstrative Kiwi gave way to the proud Gramps and he pulled them both in for a hug that squeezed giggles out of them.

When the boys went back to the sofa and their story, Sam and Bryan periodically looked up at their Gramps and smiled. It made me more than a bit sad that they would never known their Nan and Nandy – my mother’s parents. They would have loved them – Nan’s tea and all.

Kili had just finished telling of the epic battle between the Fir Bolg and the Femorians at Ros Fraechain when Mum called us to eat. No self-respecting Kiwi can pass up a feast. I think it’s in our constitution somewhere, if not our genes. I escorted Kili to the table under the watchful eye of Gran. I knew I was blushing and found myself grateful that everyone was too busy digging into the food to notice.

After everything except the napkins and dishes had been consumed, Gran leaned over and gave me a smile. “I heard a rumor that there’s something you’d like to announce.”

Rumor my arse. Kili’s expression was a mix of guilt and amusement. I’d been set up.

I twined my fingers with Kili’s and cleared my throat. “We welcomed the New Years with two proposals since one of anything has never been enough in this family.” I was blushing and noted spots of color on Kili’s cheeks. He’d turned to look at me and the expression on his face nearly made me forget the rest of what I’d planned to say.

“And…” Gran prompted.

My face felt like it was on fire and I could feel my hands shaking. Kili tightened his grasp and I could feel his strength. He got through so much; I could get through this.

“We both accepted. Kili has agreed to become my husband and I to being his.”

I didn’t have to continue. I couldn’t have over the congratulations. Everyone was smiling except Gramps. My concern vanished when Gran leaned over and loudly repeated what I’d said.

“It’s about time,” he bellowed. “Emily would never have let me dawdle about like you have. She’d have dragged me up the aisle by my heels.”

She swatted him with her napkin and then leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek.

He grinned. “Sixty-four years and we’re still on our honeymoon.” He grabbed her and gave her a proper kiss. It was her turn to blush and my turn to grin.

I whispered what had just happened into Kili’s ear, making him dissolve into delighted giggles. “Your family is so much more fun than mine,” he whispered back.

Mum leaned over the table and took his hand. “That’s why you have to be a part of it.

It was Kili’s turn for a proper blush. He squeezed her hand. “Thank you, both for making me feel so welcome.”

“It’s the easiest thing we’ve ever done,” Dad replied with a smile. “Welcome home, son.”

  

* * * * * *

 

New Year’s afternoon was typically taken up by watching the cricket match. But of what interest was cricket when there was a wedding to plan?

Three women, all with different ideas on what constituted the proper wedding, all talking at once, was enough to drive me out of the kitchen before I could even grab a couple of beers from the fridge.

I made Sam budge over so I could sit next to my fiancé. “They’ve all gone barking mad,” I whispered.

“No need to whisper,” Dad said, his eyes still glued to the screen. “When it comes to weddings, all women are barking mad. If you’re smart, you two will run away to Bali.”

“Why Bali?” Kili asked, looking bewildered.

Dad snorted. “Because it’s far enough away that they probably won’t follow you.”

Kili’s only request was that he wanted an informal summer wedding. Unless we wanted to wait a year, which neither of us did, that meant we had to figure something out fast. I gave him a quick kiss that made the boys giggle and promised that I would deal with it.

Yeah, no. Just…no.

You say you’re going to get married and nek minnit three women are trying to outdo each other planning it. I said a quick prayer to whatever committee in Heaven handles weddings and the people who plan them, girded my loins, and dared to enter the kitchen.

I can’t say that I really remember the rest of the day except that I got dragged into the spare room and over to the computer to look at wedding ideas, with Michelle occasionally shoving her phone in front of my face to “look at this – it’s aces!”

I could never focus, as she always shoved the phone practically up my nose and it was never “aces.”

Just fucking shoot me.

They were so eager to show me things that they totally forgot about Kili. From the wicked grin he gave me as I went past him into the spare room, he was just fine with that. It was probably the only time in his life that he was glad he was blind.

Gran wanted an old fashioned church wedding, of course. Michelle wanted matching white tuxes and a decorated banquet hall, no expense spared. Thankfully, taking pity on both my wallet and sanity, Mum intervened and pointed out that Kili would be more comfortable having his wedding in a place where he did not have to be led around by someone all the time.

The point was taken and the planning fever settled down to a manageable level. But I’m afraid that Dad and Matt were the only ones who got to relax on New Years. Kili kept Sam and Bryan occupied while I tried to reason with the women. I realized about fifteen minutes in that we should have put together a plan before saying anything to anyone. After an hour, I decided that it was like herding cats and resigned myself to a very long day.

I also decided that I’d make a drinking game out of every time they changed their mind about what color we should wear. After the sixth change, I really didn’t care anymore. When they debated about lavender, though, I seriously thought about switching from beer to whiskey. You need to be blotto to deal with this level of female bullshit.

I woke up the next day with my head splitting and a not overly sympathetic Kili handing me two paracetamol and a large Powerade. I chugged the drink, swallowed the pills, and lay back with my eyes closed. What had I gotten myself into? Why didn’t we just skip out, do the deed and then tell everyone?

Oh yeah, because I would have died of old age before I’d have heard the end of it.

I’d like to say that the craziness went away. I’d like to say that, but it didn’t. It did, however, go on simmer after I threatened to shoot through to Bali and get married there on the beach. Just Kili and me all alone in paradise. That backed them off to the point where I began to think that I might even survive it after all, even though Bali sounded really good on some days.

Kili was handling the whole family thing better than I was. I guess Irish families are a lot more interactive than Kiwis are. I was used to the typical laidback “we’ll get it done” attitude and this flurry of activity with its bickering and diametrically differing opinions were new and unsettling.

“I just want to marry you, not star in someone else’s fantasy,” I’d said, trying to keep the whine out of my voice.

Kili chuckled and gave me tiny kisses down the side of my neck, something that never failed to distract me. “I like the idea of starring in a fantasy,” he’d whispered.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “I like the idea of starring in our own. It’s the whole ‘someone else’ that give me the willies.”

“Mmm, willies…” he murmured, being incredibly unhelpful.

I heaved a sigh as his kisses trailed lower. “Really, this is unsettling.”

The laugh that floated up from between my legs was rich and husky with need. “Then let me settle you down.”

He did.

Twice.

 

* * * * *

  

The whole wedding thing threatened to get totally out of hand until we simply put a stop to it by reminding them that it was our wedding – not their wedding. We wanted simple because we wanted a day that would be fun for everyone, especially us.

We chose lightweight white suit jackets with pearl grey pants, ending the debate about what we’d wear. I wanted something simple that Kili could visualize easily. The same with the flowers; white mums with plenty of greenery suited us both. Food would be equally simple – bring a dish to share if you wanted, otherwise Dad was going to grill burgers and bratwurst and Mum was going to make her outrageously good potato salad. There would be pizza from our favorite take away and the wedding cake wasn’t going to happen. Why waste money on a fancy cake that Kili couldn’t see? Gran was going to make a chocolate cake for Kili and Michelle would make a carrot cake for me. No frills, just good eating.

Then came the choice of a celebrant. Kili definitely did not want a Catholic ceremony and, not being of the religious bent, I didn’t care. For a couple of minutes, I pondered throwing in some Maori elements. I mean, who doesn’t love a good haka? But Kili hadn’t been here long enough to get into the culture and if you’re blind and don’t have a clue what’s going on, a haka would not only be lost on you, it might scare you into next week. So, reluctantly, no haka.

I admit that I did toy mentally with the idea of Kili in a flower crown. With his curls and coloring, he would look amazing. I, on the other hand, would just look idiotic. So, I scrapped that idea unborn and went with just the suits, boutonniere, and the overhead flower thing Mum was so keen on.

Dad was the one who surprised us by finding someone to marry us. One of the guys he worked with had become a celebrant after he retired. Balin proved to be both dignified and wickedly funny. He said he’d be delighted to officiate and I was delighted that detail could be checked off the ever-growing To-Do List.

Michelle wanted to put glass bowls with a flower floating in it on the tables and cups of pastel mints. Both of those were agreeable and I knew that Kili was going to snag a handful of the mints. So would I, come to think of it. I squelched the idea of throwing rice. I mean, it’s a fertility symbol and since neither of us is likely to get pregnant, it would just be more mess to clean up afterward. No bouquet, but we wanted to exchange roses during the ceremony and could chuck those at the guests after the ceremony. It would be double the chance to catch the bouquet.

Wedding guests were easy. Kili’s boss and his husband, a couple of co-workers, my old mates who went back to secondary school, and the immediate family. I made everyone pledge that not one word would be even whispered in the vicinity of Auntie Rose. Not one. On pain of death; horrible, slow, painful death.

Finally, everything was set, meat was in the fridge, pizzas and flowers were on order, barbie was cleaned and ready to go.

The only that remained was for our nerves to settle, but craft beer, hours of cuddling and telling everyone that, unless Grafton volcano erupts, they were not to bother us until the day before the wedding worked wonders.

However, when they were allowed to come over, you would have thought the bloody volcano had erupted what with all the running back and forth, occasional moments of panic and general confusion. Somehow everything got set up and some pre-wedding decorating got done, our suits were picked up from the rental place and then, blessedly everyone left and the silence was as lovely as Kili’s smile as he drew me in for another kiss and cuddle.

 

* * * * *

  

On the morning of our wedding, I surprised myself by sleeping until the alarm clock went off. I bashed it into silence and turned over to find Kili grinning at me. He started to say something, changed his mind, and pulled me into a long slow kiss.

“Good morning, almost husband.” His accent was always stronger in the morning before he was fully awake and it sent delicious ripples through me.

“Good morning yourself, gorgeous. Are you ready for today?” I asked when I could catch my breath between kisses.

“I’ve been ready since I met you.” He nuzzled into my beard. “I used to think that things like this only happened in movies, but then you came along all sexy and hot.”

I giggled as he nibbled on my neck. “Stop that. I can’t show up for the ceremony with a hickey. You’re supposed to get them after you get married.”

He didn’t stop and I didn’t make him. “I know I’m going to regret this,” I whispered.

“No you’re not, and neither am I.”

He was right…I didn’t…

 

We did make it out of bed in time to get showered and decently dressed in jeans and Tees before the hoard descended upon us. Mum bustled in bearing bagels and cream cheese, donuts, and about four liters of coffee. Dad followed, carrying a box that was far too heavy. I relieved him of it and asked him if he wanted a beer.

He nodded and then in a conspiratorial tone whispered, “Your mum will kill me for saying this, but the only way to survive your wedding day is to start drinking early and don’t stop. By noon you won’t give a shit what color the wedding cake is.”

I brought him a beer and he collapsed in a chair in front of the TV. I handed him the remote and he looked up at me and grinned. “Getting a head start, are we?”

I could only manage to look puzzled until he pointed to his own neck right about the spot where Kili had been nibbling. I know I turned scarlet and dad started to laugh. “Don’t tell your mum I said anything, but we started our wedding day off the same way.”

For once I was truly speechless. That only made Dad laugh harder. There are some things about your folks you just really don’t want to know. I went back into the kitchen wondering if I could get away with having a beer…or six.

Surprisingly enough everything was going smoothly. Tables were set up in the yard, draped and decorated. Mints appeared (and disappeared into our pockets) and the cakes were set out. I was more than surprised to find that both were huge and decorated; Gran’s with some fancy chocolate roses that looked delicious, and Michelle’s with a very pale rainbow airbrushed across the icing and our names and the day’s date in a slender lavender script. I decided I’d have to kill her, but not until after I hugged her. My brother definitely picked a winner.

Kili was delighted with the rainbow cake, making me promise to take snaps of it so he could show it off at work. He’d shyly told me that he wanted photos of everything and everyone so that we could sit together and I could describe the pictures for him on our anniversaries. Hearing that made me really glad I’d decided to hire a wedding photographer for the afternoon. Ori had done a grand job with Matt and Michelle’s wedding, so I knew I could trust him. I wanted to capture as many memories as possible. This was a day we’d never want to forget.

Soon the guests would be arriving. I was as nervous as a cat in a canoe, but Kili was his usual cheerful self. He could hardly wait to meet everyone. Even Uncle Thorin.

Everyone has the family grump and Thorin was ours. He was a professor of New Zealand history at the University of Otago in Dunedin. The twenty-hour trip was enough to keep him nicely on the South Island, but he’d told Mum he’d sprung for a plane ticket and had decided to grace us with his presence. She was grinning when she told me. I did not grin back.

Sweet as. Just shoot me.

I was trying to figure out a graceful way to avoid the debacle when Kili piped up.

“I can hardly wait to meet him.”

We were in the middle of what, until that moment had been a nice lunch. I felt my throat clench. “Why on earth would you want to meet that old sod?”

Kili beamed at me. Goddam, that smile! When he looked at me like that I always knew that if he turned it on and asked me to walk down the middle of Main Street naked wearing gumboots I’d probably do it. “Because he’s your uncle and I want to meet the whole family.”

“Even Auntie Rose?”

“Yup. Even Auntie Rose.” He chuckled. “I figure Thorin will give me a massive head start on dealing with your auntie.”

That had been a week ago, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality.

Dad called us from the living room, “Come, boys, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Mystified, I came in with Kili on my arm. I paused for a moment and stood there blinking in surprise.

My uncle was seated on the sofa much too close to a dapper little man who looked up at me and smiled.

Kili poked me questioningly. Before I could answer him, Thorin got up from the couch, his companion trailing him across the room to stand before us.

Thorin reached out and took Kili’s hand. “I’m Thorin and you must be the Kili I’ve heard so much about.”

He smiled at us and my brain stalled out again. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my uncle smile—well, not like this. His eyes were sparkling and he had the most amazing expression on his face as he introduced us to…

“This is Bilbo. He’s my partner.” Thorin’s face split into a wide grin and I did my damnedest to pick my jaw off my shoes and smile back. Who are you and what have you done with grumpy Uncle Thorin?

“You went into business?” I received a much harder poke from Kili that effectively both shut me up and got my brain working again. “Oh yeah, ‘partner.’”

Thorin let go of Kili’s hand and Bilbo took it in a lighter, but definitely warm, handshake. “I’m glad to meet you, Kili."

Kili was grinning like it was Christmas again. "I'm glad to meet you too, Bilbo. Have you been together long?"

Bilbo looked up at Thorin with a look so full of love that it made my heart clench. "About a year. We kept it kind of quiet, though."

"Quiet isn't the word for it," Mum snapped. I could see that she was irritated at her brother for not introducing her to Bilbo earlier. I knew it wasn't because he's gay; she just doesn't like to be left out when it comes to family news.

I looked up at Thorin and he returned my gaze, blue eyes just this side of sapphire, hair longer than I remembered it curled softly around his collar, shot through with silver and a neatly trimmed beard that somehow made him seem more approachable. He looked a lot more like a teddy than the grizzly I remembered. I also realized with a start that he was a very handsome man.

I couldn’t resist teasing. "So, I'm not the only one in the family."

He smiled but reached up to scratch his beard with his middle finger.

We all burst out laughing and I had to let Kili in on the joke. He laughed hardest of all. “I just knew I was going to like your Uncle Thorin.”

“In spite of what you were told, I’m sure,” Thorin added, sending every back into gales of laughter.

I looked up at him and, feeling brave, I threw in my two cents. “I actually didn’t know you could smile.”

He smiled wryly and looked at Bilbo. “I guess I just needed a reason.”

I took his hand and shook it heartily. “I’m glad you found one. Now you can be my favorite uncle.”

“I’m your only uncle,” he pointed out gruffly, sounding more like his old self. “But I’ll take what I can get.”

I think he was going to say something else, but Gran breezed into the room. She took one look at Thorin and Bilbo, her brow arching high. She looked Bilbo up and down and I saw a twinkle come into her eyes. “Well, Thorin, you certainly took long enough. I’d given up hope.”

The look on his face was priceless. Kili sputtered next to me, trying not to laugh and I think Mum nearly choked.

Gran wasn’t having any of it. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Thorin, do you really think that I didn’t know? Now mind your manners and introduce me to this darling man you’ve found.”

The introduction went brilliantly, as Bilbo simply stepped forward and took care of it himself. I could see Gran falling in love all over again. Kili was in for some serious competition. Fortunately, there was room in her heart for all her men.

But the capper for Bilbo was when Thorin prompted him to go out to the car and get something that both were being very mysterious about. Bilbo and Thorin came back carrying Bilbo’s contribution: a huge tray of cupcakes iced with the most amazing rainbow-colored roses. He blushed hotly when everyone gushed over his cupcakes, but Thorin wouldn’t let him off the hook. He let everyone know just how much effort his boyfriend had put into making and decorating them. I joined Gran in falling forever in love with the man. I hugged both he and Thorin. If ever two people belonged together it was the two of them.

Gran came in from the kitchen and handed us both one of her big ginger biscuits. “I know you’re starving. It serves you right for hooning around instead getting up and having a proper breakfast.” She sounded irritated, but she gave Kili a poke on his knee. “Not that I blame you. Gramps and I had some fun back in our day.” It was my turn to choke on the biscuit, Thorin’s ringing laugh only making things worse.

I nearly dropped my biscuit and Kili, who’d taken a big bite, started to choke. I pounded him on the back and he gave a final cough and started to laugh.

When he could take a breath, Kili said, “Remind me never to eat or drink around you, Gran; you’re going to kill me one of these days.”

The day went better than sweet. Contrary Auckland weather conspired with us for once and gave us a day that was hot without being stifling. The light breeze kicked up the netting that draped the canopy that Mum and Michelle had sneaked past us. It was garlanded with white mums and greenery with a bouquet of the same hanging over our heads in the center.

The guests started arriving and we were kept too busy to think for awhile. Kili had invited several of his coworkers; I had some of my old associates and coworkers as well as assorted family members and friends. It pained me deeply that Kili had no family to invite. Well, he’d sent an invitation to his parents but had received no response. As much as he’d reassured me that he’d made peace with losing them several years ago, I knew that it still hurt. Fortunately, my family was dedicated to making it up to him. No matter what happened between us, he would always have family here.

We’d managed to get dressed, even though we both had far too much help. Seeing him waiting for me showed that white and pale gray had been the ideal choice. He was an absolute vision; his olive skin practically glowing against the white shirt and bowtie, his wild curls were temporarily tamed and his permanent stubble beaten back for at least a few hours. If I hadn’t already been in love with him, I would have lost my heart then and there.

Kili heard me and looked my way. Mum stepped up and quickly described how I looked in far more glowing terms than I would have used. I blushed a little as the look on Kili’s face softened and those laugh lines I loved so much crinkled as he smiled at me.

The kiss is supposed to be reserved for after the ceremony, but wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from him at that moment. I vaguely heard Thorin mutter, “Let’s just throw the rice now, and go eat.” I heard Bilbo shush him and then it was time to let Kili go and do this for real.

One of my dad’s friends had agreed to be our officiant. I’d known Balin since I was a kid and was delighted to have him take part in my wedding. Tall, with silver hair and a no-nonsense manner, he easily took charge, presiding with an air of authority that kept Mum and Michelle from making any last minute changes.

We’d written our own ceremony, which encompassed the traditional “for better or worse – in sickness and in health,” and in addition, we pledged to be one another’s best friends and to find a way to celebrate our love every day.

Standing in front of Balin, he was suddenly not just an old family friend but the bloke who was actually going to marry us…Kili and I. This was real. The planning, the disagreements, the frustration, and the nerves had all been leading up to this moment.

I was shaking like a leaf, but Kili was my rock. He stood there, impossibly handsome, smiling at me. He could see nothing but blessedly, the light from the afternoon sun. Somehow it didn’t matter to him that he was shut off from so much of the world around him. His focus was on me and it helped me to narrow my focus to him. Only him. The only focus I wanted for the rest of my life.

Later, I was glad that the ceremony was captured on video because I didn’t remember any of it. Balin said his part, but by then I was in a tunnel and the only thing that I could see or hear was Kili. If he hadn’t physically taken my hand and put the ring in it, I would have just stood and stared at my husband to be for the rest of the afternoon.

I took Kili’s hand and recited the words we’d written, praying that I would remember them and not stammer like a child in a school play.

“Kili, I love you unconditionally and without hesitation. I vow to love you, encourage you, trust you, and respect you. Today, I choose you to be my husband. I accept you as you are, and I offer myself in return. I will laugh with you in times of joy, and comfort you in times of sorrow. I will share your dreams and support you as you strive to achieve your goals. I will listen to you with compassion and understanding, and speak to you with encouragement all the days of my life.”

I slid the ring on his finger and squeezed his hand for a moment before releasing it to extend my left hand to him.

He reached out, confident that my hand would be there.

Smiling at me he said, “Fili, I take you as my husband; loving who you are now and who you are yet to become. I promise to listen to you and learn from you, to support you and accept your support. I will celebrate your triumphs and mourn your losses as though they were my own. I will care for you, stand beside you, and share with you all of life’s adversities and all of its joy. I vow not just to grow old together, but to grow together. I will love you and have faith in your love for me, through all our years and all that life may bring us.”

When the ring slipped over my knuckle I felt as if it was spinning. I could suddenly understand why grooms sometimes passed out at the altar. Kili squeezed my hand, stabilizing and centering me once again. We were one now and nothing could touch us except joy.

We wanted to add the rose ceremony but, instead of hothouse roses, we chose to cut blooms from two of the bushes in the back yard. Dad had planted them, I tended them, and Kili appreciated their scent. I’d chosen the two most fragrant, stripped the thorns and placed them in individual bud vases to wait for us.

When the time came, I picked the red one out of its vase and lifted it to my nose. The scent was almost as heavenly as the sight of Kili smiling before me.

I took his hand and placed my rose in it. “I’ve given you my ring to show that I will always love you and be there for you. I now give you a rose to show that you will always have beauty in your life.”

Kili slowly raised the rose to sniff it and then placed it in the empty bud vase on the table next to us.

He picked up the white rose and held it out to me. “I have given you my ring to show that I will always love you and be there for you. I now give you a rose to show that you will always have joy in your life.”

I took the rose, my fingers trailing along his, and placed it in the vase along with the red rose. Together they complimented one another, just like the two of us.

I know that Balin said the words we’d written for him, but I didn’t hear him. All I could hear was the thunder of my heart in my chest and all I could see was Kili standing before me looking happy and in love. I didn’t need a photograph of this moment; it was burned in my memory forever.

And suddenly it was time for the kiss and it was over. Kili was mine forever.

Forever.

  

* * * * * * *

 

I came back to the present and twirled my wedding band with my thumb. Woven of white and silver gold into a Celtic knot, it symbolized Forever – not that we needed a symbol.

The two of them thundered into the kitchen, Kili still laughing and Legolas thumping against me, demanding attention. I grabbed him and gave him a hug and then stood to pull his master into one as well.

The hug melted into a kiss and Leggy impatiently huffed at us, demanding that I pay attention to him and not that silly human. I’m sure he felt that we spent far too much time snogging. We probably did, not that I had the slightest intention of changing.

When the kiss broke I got Legolas a biscuit to help tide him over until dinner and then slid a cold beer into Kili’s hand.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he grinned, downing half of it in a long swallow.

“I do my best,” I replied as I kissed him again. He tasted of sunlight and hops.

“Are you done packing?” He slid into a chair and finished off the beer.

“Yeah, everything’s ready except you two.” I took a sip of my own beer. “Tomorrow we will hit the road to Dunedin and Uncle Thorin and Bilbo’s wedding.”

“Thank god it’s them. I don’t think I could survive it if we had to get married again.” Laughing, he got up and fetched himself another bottle. “There’s not enough beer in the world to get me through that a second time.”

“I’ll drink to that,” I replied, hoisting my beer aloft.

“And afterward?” he teased, prompting me.

“Our second honeymoon, now that I actually sold my book and have an income again.”

“And we’re going where?”

I threw back my head and laughed. “We’re taking this bloody car to Invercargill!”

**Author's Note:**

> Five chapters for what sold as a one chapter story. There is always so much more to tell about these men. Kili is as close to life as I could make him, crappy family and all. It's hard to believe that any parent could abandon their child just because he or she is gay but it happens all the time even in enlightened countries. :(


End file.
